Butterfly Nectar Sources

The extra large (for a Phlox) rich pink 1-1/4" wide flowers are centered by a contrasting dark purplish-red eye which is in turn surrounded by a narrow white halo all atop a dense groundcovering mound of rich green foliage. The butterfly attracting flower show of Pink Profusion Phlox begins in late winter to early spring and may continue for up to 8 weeks and at peak flowering the foliage may be nearly completely hidden. This is a dense clump forming slowly spreading hybrid Phlox that is well suited to the front of the border in the garden and landscape. Naturally summer dormant, consider part shade in hot summer climates. Provide a full sun to partly shaded site in a well-drained, humus rich, fertile soil for optimum vigor and flowering. Images courtesy of Chicagoland Grows®, Inc., all rights reserved. Item# 12283

Large often pyramidal sprays of small rose colored flowers are produced from spring to fall on mature plants and are held against a foil of medium green heart-shaped foliage. The flowers are in constant use by honeybees and occasionally by butterflies. The Rosa Montana or Coral Vine, Antigonon leptopus, is a tendriled, tuberous tropical vine that is evergreen in frost free regions but acts like a die-back perennial in areas that experience freezing temperatures returning from the tubers in spring. As a perennial vine, it typically remains in the 8-15' range but can exceed 40' high in tropical regions. Provide a full sun to mostly sunny site in a well-drained, average moist, fertile soil for optimum growth and flowering. Easy to grow with moderate drought resistant once well-established, though this may reduce growth and flowering. In areas where hard freezes occur, plant out early in the growing season and no later than by midsummer to help insure winter survival. Item# 825

3" yellow daisies top the tall wispy stems of this vigorous native perennial from mid spring to late summer. Finely cut rich green pinnately divided foliage adds a soft textural backdrop for the profusion of flowers. An easy and reliably perennial native for the back of the border. An excellent choice for pollinators. Image courtesy of North Creek Nurseries. Item# 9720.

Tops at 2019 UGA Trials among Agastache winning the Classic City Award! Buttery yellow 1" long tubular flowers adorn dense 10-12" high spikes atop the medium green fragrant foliage from spring and continuing well into fall. Poquita™ Butter Yellow Dwarf Hummingbird Mint is a hummingbird magnet and the dense compact habit of this Agastache, even more compact than Kudos™ Yellow, lends it to use as a specimen, including in hanging baskets, as well as in mixed containers where you can draw these aerial acrobats in for up close viewing as well as in the garden and landscape. Provide a full to mostly sunny location in a well-drained soil for optimum health and flowering. Periodic removal of spent flower spikes will help to keep the plants looking clean and fresh as well as to make way for new flower spikes. Image courtesy of Terra Nova Nurseries, Inc. www.terranovanurseries.com, all rights reserved. Item# 12120

The 1" long deep blue to deep blue-violet tubular flowers emerge from contrasting near black, dense flower spikes to 10-14" high spikes creating a two-tone effect atop a mass of deep green fragrant foliage. Poquita™ Dark Blue Dwarf Hummingbird Mint is a hummingbird and bee magnet and the dense compact habit of this Agastache, even more compact than the Kudos™ series, lends it to use as a specimen or in mixed containers where you can draw these aerial acrobats in for up close viewing as well as in the garden and landscape. Provide a full to mostly sunny location in a well-drained soil for optimum health and flowering. Periodic removal of spent flower spikes will help to keep the plants looking clean and fresh as well as to make way for new flower spikes. Image courtesy of Terra Nova Nurseries, Inc. www.terranovanurseries.com, all rights reserved. Item# 12777

Orange 1" long tubular flowers adorn dense 10-12" high spikes atop the medium green fragrant foliage from spring and continuing well into fall. Poquita™ Orange Dwarf Hummingbird Mint is excellent for hummingbirds and the dense compact habit of this Agastache, even more compact than Kudos™ Mango, lends it to use as a specimen or in mixed containers where you can draw these aerial acrobats in for up close viewing as well as in the garden and landscape. Provide a full to mostly sunny location in a well-drained soil for optimum health and flowering. Periodic removal of spent flower spikes will help to keep the plants looking clean and fresh as well as to make way for new flower spikes. Image courtesy of Terra Nova Nurseries, Inc. www.terranovanurseries.com, all rights reserved. Item# 12121

Deep rose pink, 3-4" wide, coneflowers are born in profusion on this well-branched and free flowering selection of Purple Coneflower. This 2010 AAS Award winner is sure to bring in the butterflies and will certainly make a statement for the garden! Item# 9844.

The tall sturdy dense spikes of rich purple flowers of this beautiful native wildflower attract loads of butterflies and pollinators in summer. An easily grown native perennial that also makes an excellent cut flower, fresh or dried. The large bulb-like corm will produce several flower spikes once mature. Best in average to moist soils. Item# 9559.

Over a long period beginning In late summer and fall these plants are covered with dark-eyed, bicolor red, orange, and golden yellow, 2-3" wide daisies that sit atop sturdy stems with the flowers providing pollen and nectar for smaller pollinators and other garden beneficials. Prairie Glow Brown-Eyed Susan offers more flowers over a longer period on sturdy disease resistant plants with improved vigor and branching on longer-lived plants. This is a heat and sun-loving, deer and rabbit resistant native well-suited to both the garden and landscape as well as in naturalistic settings. The Brown-Eyed Susan, Rudbeckia triloba, readily reseeds on exposed soils but is not aggressive or difficult to control. It prefers a full to mostly sunny position in well-drained, average moist to semi-dry soils. Ripened seedheads offer food for songbirds and small mammals. Images courtesy of North Creek Nurseries, Inc., all rights reserved. Item# 12774

Tops in Mt. Cuba Center's first Echinacea trials in 2009 and was still one of the top ten in the 2020 trials! It also garnered the most pollinator visits in their 2018-19 trial years likely due to its strongly fragrant flowers. Pure white rays surround the dark orange tipped rounded cones of disk flowers on the 3-5" wide flowers atop sturdy 24-30" high stems beginning in late spring and continuing into early fall. PRAIRIE PILLARS™ Fragrant Angel Coneflower is a hybrid Coneflower selected for its exceptionally long flowering season that lasts from late spring or early summer often into fall, briliant color, extra large flowers, and improved branching habit over the original Mac-N-Cheese as well as its perennial reliability as a garden plant. Coneflowers are clump forming perennials whose often fragrant flowers are adored by butterflies, bees, and other pollinators that can be enjoyed as part of the sunny garden garden and landscape as well as container specimens. Leave seedheads for fall and winter songbirds to enjoy. Provide a full to mostly sunny site in an average moist, well-drained, fertile soil for optimum vigor and flowering. Photos courtesy of TERRA NOVA® Nurseries, Inc. www.terranovanurseries.com, all rights reserved. Item# 12787

Clusters of 2" wide primrose yellow fragrant 4-petalled flowers are produced in mid to late spring into early summer atop the low growing spreading stems adorned with deep green fuzzy foliage of this native perennial wildflower. Prairie Sundrops, a.k.a. Meadow Evening Primrose, is a dayflowering species of Evening Primrose with a low somewhat bushy habit and it does spread somewhat by rhizomes which is great for naturalistic settings like meadows, prairies and roadside plantings and it is reportedly relatively easy to control in garden settings as well. An adaptable native perennial that is tolerant of wet to dry soils including clay but it seems to prefer an acidic pH. The flowers attract butterflies and larger native bees. Item# 11662

The 2-1/2" to 3" wide, rich watermelon pink, funnel-shaped flowers sport a contrasting deep red blotch on the upper most petals and are produced in midspring on this highly popular old cultivar. Pride of Mobile Azalea, a.k.a. Elegans Superba or Watermelon, is a vigorous heirloom Southern Indica evergreen azalea with an initially upright habit to about 6-8'(-10') and wide. Its vigorous habit lend this large growing evergreen azalea to use as an informal hedge, specimen plant, and as a spring flowering backdrop for mixed perennial gardens as well as in the landscape. Azaleas do best in average moist, acidic soils that are rich in organic matter but have good to excellent drainage and should be top dressed with an organic mulch such as pine straw and pine bark. We recommend using a slow-release, non-burning fertilizer that is labeled for acidic loving plants. Azalea flowers attract a variety of pollinators including bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. Item# 12802

The deep berry colored, dark-eyed flowers cover up the plants from late spring or early summer into fall atop sturdy branching stems on compact plants attracting a variety of pollinators but especially bees and butterflies. PRIMA™ Berry Coneflower was selected for its tight compact habit and excellent flower power. Its compact enough to create excellent container specimens as well as for summerlong color in the garden and landscape. Echinaceas typically do best in fertile, well-drained, average moist soils in a full to mostly sunny sites. Leave seedheads for fall and winter songbirds to enjoy. Photos courtesy of TERRA NOVA® Nurseries, Inc. www.terranovanurseries.com, all rights reserved. Item# 13320

In warm orange and yellow shades, the large, fragrant, upward facing flowers are centered by a large dark, nectar rich cones tipped in dark orange and red tones and the ray petals tend to be lightest at their tips deepening into orange tones nearest their base. PRIMA™ Tiger Echinacea or Coneflower was selected for its compact mound of clean deep green foliage that is topped by by sturdy 12-18" high stems that flower for months beginning in late spring or early summer and continuing into fall. This is a hardy clump forming perennial that will do best in fertile, well-drained, average moist soils in a full to mostly sunny site. The compact habit of PRIMA™ Tiger Echinacea lends it to use as a container plant as well as in the garden and landscape. Leave seedheads for fall and winter songbirds to enjoy. Photos courtesy of TERRA NOVA® Nurseries, Inc. www.terranovanurseries.com, all rights reserved. Item# 13079

Hundreds of 1" wide lavender-blue, semi-double daisies with a showy yellow eye literally cover these plants for weeks beginning in late summer and continuing into mid fall. Professor Anton Kippenburg New York Aster or Michaelmas Daisy is a clump forming, densely branching, perennial growing to just 12-18" high and wide and while this is a small growing plant it never seems to lack for flower power once late summer arrives. Dr. Allen Armitage in his Herbaceous Perennial Plants, 4th edition states that "This excellent cultivar has withstood the test of time." No pinching or staking is required to enjoy these beauties. Use these perennials where you would normally buy Chrysanthemums whether as part of the perennial border, in the landscape, or even as container plants. The flowers attract bees, butterflies, hover flies, and numerous other garden beneficials. Item# 12018

Spikes of soft golden-orange upward facing funnel-shaped flowers are produced non-stop from mid to late spring to fall atop the medium green foliage attracting hummingbirds, occasional butterflies, and long-tongued bees. Pumpkin Pie Hummingbird Bush, a selection of Anisacanthus quadrifidus var. wrightii and potentially the same as the cultivar 'Bennie's Gold', is a small decidous native shrub from South Texas with excellent flower power. This easy and reliable heirloom has an upright to spreading busny habit rarely exceeding 3-4' in height (3'x3' is fairly typical in our zone 8B gardens) and it revels in the heat and sun of summer and is undaunted by the high humidity and high rainfall of the southeastern US. In the northernmost portion of its hardiness range, zones 7A-8A, the Hummingbird Bush may freeze back to near groundlevel in the hardest winters but readily returns to flowering by mid to late spring. Provide a full sun to mostly sunny site in a well-drained, fertile, average moist soil for optimum vigor and flowering. Small enough for containers but makes a no-maintenance addition the garden and landscape. Catepillar host for Crimson Patch. Item# 9671

Large, 3" wide deep purplish red trumpet shaped flowers are produced throughout the warmer months of the year to potentially year-round under warm tropical conditions. The Purple Allamanda, we originally thought that this was the dwarf form, is a vigorous growing and very free flowering, naturally evergreen, scandent (or vine-like shrub, rambler, etc.) and can be trained to espelier, trellis, or arbor or periodic pruning will help to keep it semi-shrub-like. Rich green smooth foliage adorns the upright to arching stems on a plant that grows to about 8-12'H and may get larger with age under good conditions. Provide the Purple Alllamanda with a full to partly sunny site in an average moist but never soggy wet, well-drained, fertile soil for optimum vigor and continuous flowering. Where not hardy it can be easily overwintered in a warm sunny window as a container plant. It should make an excellent container specimen that is sure to add a little tropical flair to any sunny setting. Item# 12976

Clusters of white to lilac, up to 1" wide, star-shaped, lightly fragrant flowers are produced nearly continuously throughout the warmer months of the year. The large velvety, white to gray green, large rounded tropical foliage of the Giant Milkweed make excellent fodder for Monarch caterpillars and one leaf can provide a substantial amount of food. A large growing shrub in tropical climates where it can be trained into a tree form, grown as a shrub, or hedge. The Giant Milkweed can easily be maintained as a large container plant. Item# 11436

The nearly 1" wide creamy white starry spring flowers are streaked with pink and are soon followed by glossy deep purple new growth that matures to deep green. The Purple Glaze® Japanese Anise Shrub, Illicium anisatum 'Murasaki-no-sato', is a shade tolerant medium-sized to large growing evergreen shrub with a slow to medium rate of growth and naturally has an upright to rounded habit. It is somewhat resistant to short periods of drought once well-established and should be grown in a site with good drainage and average moist to moist soils in an area that receives shade during the hottest part of the day, especially in hot summer climates. Anise flowers attract bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. Not a spice plant. Item# 12003

Deep velvety purple blooms are produced continuously from spring to fall on this upright to spreading perennial. The Purple Porterweed is a medium sized variety becoming fairly dense as it matures. Porterweeds are excellent nectar producers outperforming all other butterfly plants in the garden. Item# 578.

The rich-purple tubular flowers arch outward from the center of the ball like clusters of buds that are perched atop sturdy stems and are produced for weeks in summer often lasting into fall and attract hummingbirds and larger butterflies. Purple Rooster Bee Balm, a selection of the native Monarda didyma, has outstanding disease resistance as well as some of the deepest purple flowers among its peers. This is a slowly spreading, winter deciduous, herbaceous perennial that will prefer a moist, well-drained, fertile soil in a full to mostly sunny site for optimum vigor and flowering. Purple Rooster won high marks in Monarda trials at Mt. Cuba Center, the headquarters for the American Horticulture Society. Item# 12317

Exceptionally dense spikes of 1-1/2" long purple tubular flowers are produced from late summer, throughout winter, and into spring under frost free conditions on this vigorous and unusually shade tolerant Salvia. Purple Sage, or Autumn Purple Sage is a vigorous easy to grow species from south of the border with a mounding to upright habit. Attracts hummingbirds as well as larger butterflies. Item# 11173