This One Plant Will Bring So Many Monarch Butterflies to Your Garden (Hint: It's Not Butterfly Bush)

Key Points

Milkweed is the only plant monarch butterflies can lay their eggs on and feed from as caterpillars.

Other beneficial plants for adult monarchs include zinnias, asters, coneflowers, and bee balm.

Avoid butterfly bush, as it masks the scent of milkweed and outcompetes native plants.

Butterflies, birds, and bees are all pollinators that refuel in our gardens, playing an important role in our ecosystem by fertilizing fruits and flowers. Of them, one of the most iconic species has to be the monarch butterfly.

If you want to welcome these beautiful orange visitors to your outdoor space this year, there’s one plant that attracts monarch butterflies more than any other, and it makes the perfect base for a butterfly garden.

Meet the Experts

Dagny Kream is a gardening content creator at The Cottage Peach.

Emily Lucas is a gardening expert and cut flower grower at Linen and Sage.

The Plant That Will Bring Monarchs Flocking

Credit: Marcia Straub / Getty Images

Although they have plenty of favorite flowers to feed on as adults, monarch butterflies require one specific wildflower in order to lay their eggs and survive up until metamorphosis.

“Milkweed isn’t just a plant monarchs like, it’s the only plant they can reproduce on,” gardening expert Dagny Kream explains. “Female monarchs locate it through chemical receptors on their feet and antennae that detect the specific cardenolide compounds milkweed produces.”

In their early life stage as caterpillars, milkweed exclusively makes up a monarch’s diet. This might seem precarious, but milkweed has its own defenses. The cardenolides found in the leaves are toxic to predators and parasites.

Having this plant in your garden allows this butterfly species to lay their eggs, feed, and continue to thrive across generations.

Warning

The cardenolides found in milkweed are toxic to humans and pets.

How to Grow and Care for Milkweed

Credit: The Spruce / Adrienne Legault

Milkweed is an adaptable, low-maintenance perennial plant that can grow in USDA zones 3-9. It does best in full sunlight, doesn’t require fertilizer, and only needs rainwater once its roots have been established.

You can grow milkweed by starting seeds indoors before spring, propagating an established plant, or planting into the ground. Once you have a patch growing, it’ll naturally spread very quickly when its seed pods open each year.

“Directly sow milkweed seeds in fall for natural cold stratification, or start indoors with 30 days of cold stratification in your fridge,” Kream suggests. “The biggest mistake I made early on was babying milkweed—it wants to be ignored, thrives in poor, dry, well-drained soil, and resents being moved once established because of its deep taproot.”

Important

Milkweed can attract garden pests including aphids, spider mites, and thrips—but do not apply pesticides to your milkweed or the rest of your garden. This can harm the monarchs and other pollinators you’re hoping to attract.

5 Other Plants Monarchs Adore

Credit: Orchidpoet / Getty Images

Milkweed is the most essential plant for a monarch during the first few phases of its life cycle, but there are several other nectar-rich plants that attract them in their fully-grown butterfly form.

Purple coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea) give monarchs a solid surface area to land and feed on.

Ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis) can grow several feet tall and makes an ideal border plant for a butterfly garden.

Asters (Symphyotrichum spp.) bloom towards the end of summer and supply nectar to monarchs later in the year.

Bee balm (Monarda) also appeals to other pollinator species of animals.

Liatris (Liatris spicata, also known as blazing star) attracts large groups of monarchs at a time.

Why You Shouldn’t Grow Butterfly Bush

Credit: The Spruce / Evgeniya Vlasova

Despite its name, butterfly bush (Buddleia) doesn’t do much to benefit monarchs. According to our pros, this flower causes confusion and takes up valuable space and resources that could be directed to milkweed instead.

“The nectar butterfly bush produces is essentially empty calories,” Kream says. “It attracts adult butterflies for a quick sugar hit, but it offers no host plant value and no larval food source.”

Butterfly bush is also a rapid and aggressive grower, which is another reason gardening expert Emily Lucas advises steering clear.

“I have found butterfly bush to be invasive in my garden, and seen it draw attention and resources away from more beneficial plants that would be considered native to my area,” she shares. “It also does not support reproduction— monarchs specifically need a host milkweed plant to lay eggs on.”

Read the original article on The Spruce