Butterfly Gardens for the Midwestern Gardener

by Mary
(Topeka, Kansas)

Gardeners in the Midwest are especially lucky to live on one of the main migration routes for Monarch butterflies. These flying jewels pass though here twice a year!

Establishing a flower garden will attract them to the yard and garden and add color and movement throughout the warm months. Fortunately, many native prairie plants are ideally suited to both the garden and butterflies.

The most popular is, not surprisingly, called The Butterfly Weed, a type of milkweed. The intensely orange color is not only a bright spot in the garden in June but also a vital plant for butterflies. The low-growing plant is a perennial and while difficult to establish it is long-lived and tough thereafter. It prefers rocky, well-drained soils. Cultivars are also available in less intense colors if the blazing orange doesn’t work with the garden palate.

Another prairie plant that butterflies love is coneflower or echinacea. This plant grows tall, 24-30 inches, though shorter varieties are available. The flowers persist for much of the summer. While the original is pink with a dark seed cone, growers have hybridized this plant and now offer an array of colors. One thing gardeners should realize is this plant reseeds very freely and spreads liberally. Since it is a native plant in the Midwest, it isn’t likely to cause a problem but it will crowd out other garden plants. It is easy to control by digging in early spring and sharing or discarding unwanted plants. The root system is shallow enough to come up easily.

Milkweed, of course, is a butterfly’s delight. It grows easily in moist areas but care should be taken to contain it. It has white flowers that form seedpods that are prized by flower arrangers for dried arrangements.

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