Butterfly larval host trees

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CBernard Perris, CA(Zone 9a) Jun 14, 2008

Does anyone know of trees that attract butterflies as larval hosts in our area? I read about this in another forum I was interested in maybe taking out the tree in the front yard and replacing it with a tree that grows well in our area.

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Smokey_SC Piedmont, SC(Zone 7b) Jun 14, 2008

Go to Plant Files and look up Buttterfly Bush. It should tell you if it will grow in your area.

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ecrane3 Dublin, CA(Zone 9a) Jun 15, 2008

I'm pretty sure it'll grow there...but I'm not sure if it quite counts as a tree. Although to be fair I have seen some that have gotten pretty large when people don't prune them. I also don't think it's a larval host, I think it's just a plant that grownup butterflies happen to enjoy.

Here are some search results for you to look through--the site www.wildflower.org has great information about what plants are larval hosts for what butterflies, but unfortunately that's not one of the things you can search directly for using their search engine. So I used Google to look just at that site, looking for the words larval host, tree, and California. So you'll still have to weed through some results of plants that probably wouldn't do well in your area, but hopefully most of them are OK. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_q=%22larval+host%22+tree+California&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&num=10&lr=&as_filetype=&ft=i&as_sitesearch=www.wildflower.org&as_qdr=all&as_rights=&as_occt=any&cr=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&safe=images

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CBernard Perris, CA(Zone 9a) Jun 15, 2008

Thanks for the links and thanks for the info about the butterfly bush. I already have a butterfly bush that is about 12 feet high (I cut it down to about half size every Fall). Thanks, ecrane3, for giving me the ideas about google.

Thanks to the both of you,

Chuck

Post #5106037
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CBernard Perris, CA(Zone 9a) Jun 19, 2008

Thanks again, ecrane3. I checked the site and was given a lot of info. The most important one was the California live oak. One of the properties we looked at had two California live oaks that were 200 years old. We are still looking for a half an acre or more in Cherry Valley to build a house on.

Thanks,

Chuck

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