Attracting Butterflies to your Garden

Australian Painted Lady resting on a Bracteantha Mallee Sun

Many native plants invite butterflies into your garden as they look for food plants for themselves and their larvae.
Butterflies like open, sunny gardens where they can find shelter from winds and plenty of nectar-rich flowers as well as suitable plants for their larvae to eat.

Certain plants attract particular butterflies. For example, Imperial Blue butterflies live only on saplings of Acacias while the larvae of Skipper butterflies feed on Lomandra leaves.

To encourage butterflies to live in your garden, plant a range of native plants to provide nectar for butterflies and native grasses, peas and daisies for caterpillars.

Philotheca myoporoides

They also like shallow ponds for water and sunny, sheltered rocks for sun-baking. On the other hand, they don’t like herbicides, insecticides and pesticides so look for other ways to keep caterpillars away from your favourite plants.
Butterflies also require mud puddles from which to obtain essential salts, and over ripe fruit is an important source of amino acids that can’t be gained from nectar alone.

Having a diverse range of native plants in your garden will ensure you can enjoy the benefits of butterflies all year round.