Inland Empire Real Estate News: The Butterflies and The Bees: 5 Plants That Will Attract Pollinators to Your Garden

The Butterflies and The Bees

The Butterflies and The Bees: 5 Plants That Will Attract Pollinators to Your Garden

Tips & Tricks

This year you can enjoy a lovely landscape full of blossoms that will lure the most beautiful butterflies and beguile the busiest bees. These five plants will draw pollinating insects to your yard.

1. Milkweed - Milkweed is the perfect plant to start your insect-friendly garden. Both butterflies and bumblebees feed from milkweed's tiny flowers. The bloom season is short for milkweed, but it is especially valuable as a food plant for butterflies. Milkweed provides a prime location for monarch butterflies to lay their eggs. When the larvae hatch, they feed on the delicious milkweed leaves. One of the best species of milkweed to attract monarchs is Asclepias tuberosa, which grows best in sandy soil.

2. Foxglove - Bees love the nectar-rich Digitalis purpurea, a native of Europe. The unique tubular shape of the plant's petals allows bees to land easily on the blossom, crawl inside and feast on the delicious nectar inside. Pets and children should be supervised around the foxglove as the plant is highly poisonous. Foxglove will grow best if it is planted in moist soil after the danger of frost has passed.

3. Monkshood - There are several hundred different species of monkshood and, like many favorite plants of pollinating insects, almost all of them are poisonous. Monkshood requires some brute force to access the sweet nectar within, and fat bumblebees have the bulk to muscle their way inside the delicate purple petals. Several different species of moths also use monkshood as a food source for their larvae. To grow the healthiest plants, cultivate your monkshood in moist, well-drained soil.

4. Dogbane - Called dogbane because of its highly toxic effects on hungry dogs, dogbane blooms throughout the late spring and summer. Also known by its Latin name of Apocynum cannabinum, dogbane is a favorite nectar source of several different butterfly species, especially the American Painted Lady butterfly. Dogbane makes a perfect addition to weedy butterfly gardens where the plants are allowed to flourish without too much interference. Dogbane is drought-tolerant, although it grows best in moister soils.

5. Mexican sunflower - If you hope to attract the beautiful monarch butterfly to your garden, there's no flower more suited to the job than the Mexican sunflower. A native of the butterflies' wintering grounds in Mexico, Tithonia diversifolia provides a familiar sight to hungry monarchs looking for their next meal of nectar. As an added bonus, remnants from pruned Mexican sunflowers make an excellent and nutritious mulch.

Whether you want to catch the eye of a passing bumblebee or attract a brilliantly colored butterfly, these five plants will fill your garden with helpful and attractive insects.