Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: Looking to attract a Atala hairstreak, 1 by artcons

artcons wrote:
Shelia,
You can plant some herbs like parsley, rue & fennel. They attract several varities of swallowtail butterflies. They are cheap, available and work well through the early summer. If you plant some in the shade, possibly under other bushes, they may last through to the fall.

The native passion flowers like Maypop Passiflora incarnata (blue) the Corkbark Passiflora Suberosa (green) and the Wild Yellow Passion Flower Passiflora lutea are favorites of Florida native butterflies. BE carefull in planting red passionflowers as some var. of them will kill GF butterflies.

The Christmas Sienna will attract yellow and white varities of butterflies.

There there are lots of other larvae plants you can use.

Below is a searchable data base where you can find more information on larvae host plants for butterflies.
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/projects/hostplants/

The picture is of a Black Swallowtail cat eating parsley this past June. In the next couple of posts I will show other cats.

Good luck!

Art