Love Butterflies? Plant These!

The numbers of monarch butterflies have dropped by 90 percent in less than a quarter-century. Genetically modified foods (GMO) are believed to have caused this precipitous drop. These butterflies may soon be on the Endangered Species list.

If you would like to host butterflies in your yard, here are some plants that are especially delicious and welcoming – and the particular butterflies that love them most. Monarchs generally stop off in the Ohio on their way to Mexico for the winter.

Alfalfa – Sulphur butterflies

Azalea – Gray Comma butterflies

Buckwheat – Acmon Blue butterflies

Chickasaw plum – Coral Hairstreak butterflies

Cottonwood — Viceroy butterflies

Cudweed – American Painted Lady butterflies

Dragon sagebrush – Baird’s Swallowtail butterflies

Everlast – American Painted Lady butterflies

Gooseberry – Gray Comma butterflies

Grasses – Woodland Skipper butterflies

Hoptree – Western Tiger Swallowtail butterflies

Lupines – Acmon Blue butterflies

Mallows – Painted Lady butterflies

Maypops – Gulf Fritillary and Variegated Fritillary butterflies

Milkvetch – Acmon Blue butterflies

Milkweeds – Monarch butterflies

Mistletoe – Great Purple Hairstream butterflies

Parsley – Black Swallowtail butterflies

Passion Flower – Variegated Fritillary butterflies

Pawpaw – Zebra Swallowtail butterflies

Peas – Sulphur butterflies

Pigweed – Pygmy Blue butterflies

Plum – Western Tiger Swallowtail butterflies

Prickly Ash – Giant Swallowtail butterflies

Purpletop grass – Dun Skipper butterflies

Redbud – Henry’s Elfin butterflies

Saltbush – Pygmy Blue butterflies

Sassafras – Spicebush Swallowtail butterflies

Sedges – Dun Skipper butterflies

Stonecrop – Variegated Fritillary butterflies

Sycamore – Western Tiger Swallowtail butterflies

Thistles – Painted Lady butterflies

Vetches – Western Tailed Blue butterflies

Violets – Variegated Fritillary butterflies

Wild Cherries – Red Admiral/White Admiral and Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterflies

Willow – Western Tiger Swallowtail and Viceroy butterflies

Wisteria – Silver-Spotted Skipper butterflies

Add some of these plants to your yard or garden, and prepare for visits from these beautiful and varied butterflies!