Why You'll Want To Rethink Planting Butterfly Bush If You Want To Attract Pollinators

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You want to attract butterflies to your garden. They're pretty, they're pollinators, and they're important to the ecosystem. Butterfly bush may seem like an ideal plant to grow to support butterfly populations. Butterflies will flutter to this plant when it's in full bloom to drink the nectar, but these important insects need plants that provide habitat, too. «Butterflies need nectar as adults and host plants as caterpillars,» explains Mary Phillips, Head of Native Plant Habitat Strategy/Certifications at the National Wildlife Federation. Butterfly bush isn't a larval host plant and doesn't provide the habitat butterflies need for the next cycle of butterflies.

Here's why butterfly bush isn't the best plant for butterflies and pollinators, how it's invasive in many regions, why natives are a preferred choice, and alternative plants to grow.

• Mary Phillips is the Head of Native Plant Habitat Strategy/Certifications at the National Wildlife Federation
• Sam Hoadley is the Manager of Horticultural Research at Mt. Cuba Center
• Dr. Adam Baker is a technical advisor at The Davey Tree Expert Company’sDavey Institute.

Butterflies drink the nectar of butterfly bushes. «Non-native plants like butterfly bush may be able to support some generalist pollinators that are able to forage on the nectar or pollen of a variety of plants, but they are likely unable to support other life stages of those insects,» says Sam Hoadley, Manager of Horticultural Research at Mt. Cuba Center.

According to Phillips, «Just because you may see butterflies visiting the butterfly bush plant to feed on nectar does not mean