If you want to plant a true butterfly garden, you need more than nectar plants. Caterpillars need food, too! Include caterpillar host plants, and you'll attract a lot more butterflies as they visit your plants to lay eggs.
Some caterpillars specialize on particular host plants. Monarch butterflies, for example, depend on milkweed to complete their life cycle, because monarch caterpillars can only feed on milkweed leaves. Other caterpillars eat a more varied diet. Black swallowtail caterpillars will feed on any member of the parsley family: parsley, fennel, carrot, dill, or even Queen Anne's lace.
When you plan your butterfly garden, include some caterpillar host plants from this list. A well-designed butterfly garden supports not only this year's butterflies, but generations of butterflies to come!
Garden Butterflies and Their Host Plants
| Butterfly | Caterpillar Host Plants |
| American painted lady | pearly everlasting |
| American snout | hackberry |
| black swallowtail | dill, fennel, carrot, parsley |
| cabbage whites | mustards |
| checkered whites | mustards |
| common buckeye | snapdragons, monkey flowers |
| eastern comma | elm, willow, hackberry |
| emperors | hackberry |
| giant swallowtail | lime, lemon, hoptree, prickly ash |
| grass skippers | little bluestem, panic grass |
| greater fritillaries | violets |
| gulf fritillary | passion vines |
| heliconians | passion vines |
| monarch butterfly | milkweeds |
| mourning cloak | willow, birch |
| painted lady | thistles |
| palamedes swallowtail | red bay |
| pearl crescent | asters |
| pipevine swallowtail | pipevines |
| question mark | elm, willow, hackberry |
| red admiral | nettles |
| red spotted purple | cherry, poplar, birch |
| silver-spotted skipper | black locust, indigo |
| spicebush swallowtail | spicebush, sassafras |
| sulphurs | clovers, alfalfa |
| tiger swallowtail | black cherry, tulip tree, sweet bay, aspen, ash |
| viceroy | willow |
| zebra swallowtail | pawpaws |
