I’ve planted what feels like a thousand butterfly nectar plants in my yard but I only seem to see cabbage whites and skippers. I’ve got milkweed and agastache, allium, aquilegia, sidalcea, mahonia, and solidago. I’ve got arctostaphylos and ceanothus, ribes and spirea.
I’ve got basking sites, in the form of the large flat light-colored rocks that surround the berm in the front.
I’ve got a meadow in development, which will get planted with achillea and asters alongside the grasses.
I’m feeling impatient, so I made an impromptu puddling station. Apparently butterflies won’t drink from open water and they like mud puddles or wet gravel. I tucked a plate filled with gravel and soil near the milkweed. It will never stay wet all day but I’ve read you can bury a bucket full of sand in the soil and that should have some staying power through the heat of the day.
Do you have a butterfly magnet in your yard? What plant am I missing? Just don’t say butterfly bush, it’s a noxious weed in Oregon.
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