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I have never - not once - seen a tiger swallowtail visit a native flower. It boggles my mind what they would have eaten before people brought over other flowers!
In Native Plant Gardening

I have never – not once – seen a tiger swallowtail visit a native flower. It boggles my mind what they would have eaten before people brought over other flowers!


If i don't plant something like a lantana, they just don't show up at all!
They don't like anything else I have, and I have like 80 flowering native plant species (+ grasses, ferns and sedges.)



by LobeliaTheCardinalis

42 Comments

  1. Gayfunguy

    Blazing star, cone flowers, joe pie weed, iron weed, button bush. Ect. A Lantana is native to texas AND potted flowers are waterd and bloom continuously so the butterflys know what to look our for for quick reliable food.

  3. Affectionate_Ad722

    They love tulip poplars. I see them a lot on my milkweed and Joe pye weed.

  5. murderbot45

    They are all over my tulip trees. More nectar in those flowers too.

  8. UmpirePerfect4646

    Cup plant. There are literally 10-15 on my cup plants at any given time.

  10. Uptown_Emu

    You’re not the only one noticing the funny trend of native insects preferring non-native plants. Butterfly bush is a great example. The pollinators go crazy for that stuff. I guess they like foreign cuisine just like us.

  13. Rebootrefresh

    I get these guys all the time. They’re actually my favorite. Pro tip: tiger boys go fucking goofy for that Joe Pye weed.

  14. stringTrimmer

    Check my avatar photo. That’s a tiger swallowtail on tall thistle (native) flower. Tho I’ve only seen the caterpillars on dill 🤷

  16. DJGrawlix

    I have black swallowtails all over my dill, fennel and asparagus. I may have to give in and plant some just for them next year.

  18. atreeindisguise

    Must not be any compass plant nearby. Absolutely their favorite in my yard.

  20. Toadfolk

    The Monarchs and Swallowtails LOVE my Zinnas out of everything I have. I do see them dabble on my native plants, but man do they love those Zinnas!

  21. Somecivilguy

    I’m going to be honest, this summer I haven’t seen any in my yard since adding more natives.

  23. _hawkeye_96

    Genuinely thought this was the cj page 😬🤣

  24. GizmoGeodog

    In my yard right now they’re all over my native bee balm which just started blooming.

  25. Icy-Conclusion-3500

    They’re always all over my rhodies, and i see them up on my black cherry trees depositing their young!

  26. penholdtogatineau

    I see them all over my non-native phlox. Never on my natives.

  27. Vulcan1951

    I never saw so many as I’d seen when my Joe pye bloomed this year

  28. Far-Simple-8182

    Yes, I notice this as well. I have coneflower, black eyed Susans, Joe pye weed, mint, butterfly bushes, agastache, milkweed…
    They go for the pentas. I say they but I’ve only seen one. I don’t have many butterflies at all because so many neighbors spray pesticides regularly. At my last house I had so many all over my creeping phlox in the spring.

  29. Treje-an

    I have never seen them go to black eyed Susan’s. But I have seen them go to many other natives

  30. queenjz

    I get tiger swallowtails on my cup plant and purple coneflower all the time! They may be a little more particular but there’s definitely natives they like

  32. estherlane

    They do visit native flowering plants, have done for thousands of years. Just because *you* haven’t seen it doesn’t mean a thing.

  33. WarpTenSalamander

    I have a million flowering natives too, but this year the only non-natives I have are a handful of cosmos that self seeded from last year, so I’ve seen exactly one tiger swallowtail all summer.

    I haven’t seen hardly any butterflies of any sort this summer, and it’s worrying me. This is the least I’ve ever seen. One spicebush swallowtail, two monarchs, one tiger swallowtail, and a couple common hackberries. All summer.

  34. New_Life1810

    Well yea they may enjoy the pollination aspect, but when they lay eggs on non native – the caterpillars die because they can’t it

  36. urbantravelsPHL

    Tiger swallowtails have an annoying habit of liking the flowers of tall trees and generally spending most of their time up in the treetops (since their host plants are trees as well), and it’s annoying specifically to me as a person who wants to take photos of butterflies.

    Nevertheless, I do have records in my iNaturalist of tiger swallowtails on anise hyssop, Liatris spicata, tall phlox (Phlox paniculata), and of course buttonbush, because if it’s big swallowtails you’re after you need to be growing buttonbush.

    *ETA: looking through my iNat reminds me that we get a fair number of the dark morph female Tiger Swallowtails around here, and you really need to look carefully to make sure you’re not misidentifying one of those as a Black Swallowtail.

  37. PaintedDream

    Never knew what these beauties were called. But in Northern Wisconsin, they’re in our 25acre native flowers/weeds field alllll the time.

  38. No_Shopping_573

    I see swallowtails a ton in tree canopy flowers like tulip way up high out of sight.

  39. mittenmix

    I had one hanging off of my clethra alnifolia the other day!

  40. Hunter_Wild

    I’ve only ever seen them on liatris. So I can guess what lol.

  42. forwardseat

    Ours go nuts for mountain mint. They come to coneflower a lot as well, but I think mountain mint is their crack.

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