How to attract butterflies to your garden

Provide food for caterpillars and choose nectar-rich plants for butterflies and you’ll have a colourful, fluttering display in your garden for many months.

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While just about any flower with nectar can be a treat for butterflies, it is a slightly different story for caterpillar food or 'host' plants. In fact, most butterfly species have just a short list of host plants. Often this is because caterpillars need particular chemicals from that plant to bring out their warning colouration as butterflies.

Some butterflies and caterpillars overwinter, so shelter in the garden, such as thick growths of ivy, is also important.

Plants for butterflies

Species	Host plant
Comma	Stinging nettle, hop, currants
Common blue	Bird’s-foot-trefoil
Dingy skipper	Bird’s-foot-trefoil, horseshoe vetch
Green-veined white	Hedge mustard, cuckooflower, nasturtium
Holly blue	Holly, ivy
Large skipper	Cock's-foot, false brome
Large white	Cultivated varieties of Brassica oleracea, such as cabbage and brussel-sprouts, nasturtium, wild mignonette
Marsh fritillary	Devil's-bit scabious
Meadow brown	Grasses: fescues, meadow-grasses and bents
Orange-tip	Cuckooflower, garlic mustard, honesty
Painted lady	Thistles, stinging nettle
Peacock	Stinging nettle
Red admiral	Stinging nettle, hop
Ringlet	Cock's-foot, false brome, tufted hair-grass, common couch
Small copper	Common sorrel, sheep's sorrel
Small skipper	Yorkshire-fog
Small tortoiseshell	Stinging nettle, small nettle
Small white	Cultivated varieties of Brassica oleracea, such as cabbage, nasturtium, wild mignonette, hedge mustard, garlic mustard
Wall brown	Cock's-foot, false brome, Yorkshire-fog, wavy hair-grass

Growing host plants for caterpillars in the garden is not necessarily guaranteed to attract the relevant butterflies, but butterflies do breed in gardens, so it is worth experimenting with different host plants to see which species might find your garden suitable.

A common blue butterfly perched on a grass head, with its blue wings spread open

Common blue (male) © Tom Hibbert

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A large white butterfly feeding on lavender flowers

Large white butterflies are fond of lavender. Image by Megan Lowe

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