Who’s not charmed by butterflies? Their colorful wings are stunning, but monarch butterflies are now rare due to ecological issues. While many visit conservation areas, you can enjoy them daily with butterfly garden ideas.
Transform your patio or backyard into a butterfly haven with flowers for nectar and shelter. Set up a wooden chair to relax and watch them flutter around.
Your garden will look beautiful and be a haven for these lovely pollinators. Before exploring garden ideas, learn about the best nectar plants for attracting butterflies.
Table of Contents
- Butterfly-Friendly Garden Plans
- Perennial and Annual Butterfly Garden Designs
- 9. Diverse Native Garden
- 10. Butterfly-Supporting Garden Setting
- 11. Sunny Garden Design
- 12. Front Yard Perennial Heaven
- 13. Coneflower Garden Setting
- 14. Bright Perennial Backyard
- 15. Black Eyed Susan Landscaping
- 16. Butterfly-Friendly Porch Garden
- 17. Perennial Herbs Garden
- 18. Whimsical Insect-Friendly Garden
- Raised Beds Butterfly Garden Arrangements
- What Plant Attracts Butterflies the Most?
- Where is the Best Place to Plant a Butterfly Garden?
- Final Thought
- FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
Butterfly-Friendly Garden Plans
Prepare well-designed butterfly garden plans to create a suitable habitat. Be playful and creative with flower selections. Enjoy watching butterflies fly around every day in summer and spring.
Try these stunning butterfly garden ideas!
1. Cottage Flower Garden


A cottage flower garden is perfect for a butterfly garden. It’s filled with nectar-rich blooms and adds colorful sights to your yard. Grow native plants with perennial and annual flowers alternately.
Start with tall plants like lavender, balance with black-eyed Susan, and plant them along a wooden garden path for a fairy-tale look.
2. Minimalist Garden Fencing


Replace your dull fence with an eye-catching flower garden fence. Grow roses for their wide blooms and strong scents to attract butterflies.
Add Mexican sunflowers for a striking orange shade and honeysuckle to cover the fence. Include a bird bath to invite birds and provide water.
3. Backyard Butterfly Garden


Butterflies love vibrant flowers with abundant nectar. An eye-catching perch is also captivating for them. Place a butterfly-shaped bench amidst colorful blooms to attract them.
Enjoy sitting there, surrounded by butterflies, while having coffee or reading a book.
4. Pollinators Garden Setting


With this gorgeous, colorful garden, pollinators, including butterflies, will visit frequently. Diverse textures offer butterflies a variety of nectars. Grow butterfly bush, swamp milkweed, aster, lavender, and anise hyssop with a bird bath for a lush, pollinator-friendly garden.
These flowers create a charming sight, though a large backyard is needed.
5. Small Backyard Butterfly Garden


While previously we offered you an idea for a large area to create a butterfly-friendly conservation, here is another one for a small backyard. No need to make your hands full as you just require to grow black-eyed susan and butterfly bush to create a suitable habitat for butterflies.
You can also install a butterfly home if you don’t have dense trees around that allows them to reproduce and lay eggs. A garden lamp will be awesome to set in this setting to illuminate light at night. But please, choose a warm tone so as not to upset fireflies.
6. Dense Pollinators Garden Layout


If you wish to fill a wide space, there is no better option than growing tall flowering plants. They will grow dense, covering up your outdoor area and creating a natural privacy screen. Their blooms also add exquisite beauty to your home, with an array of colors to brighten up this area.
For the purple ones, butterfly bushes are a fantastic pick as they are the butterfly’s favorite, hence the name. Meanwhile, the red or orange tones you can get from butterfly weed. But it will be empty without greenery. Choose fennel to grow at the base to attract Swallowtail butterflies to lay eggs and grow into caterpillars that also feed on this plant.
7. Mini Butterfly Garden Design


Space size is not an issue in creating a lovely butterfly-friendly landscape for your favorite pollinators. All you need to prepare is the key elements, like rocks, water features, soils, and sunny locations. Try to grow diverse plants with different growing seasons to elevate your garden and stay colorful year-round.
Choose the low-growing ones like asters, coneflowers, and black-eyed susans to save space. Besides, they also offer a wide range of bright tones to add some appeal. Don’t forget to set up a nectar feeder and garden path from rocks to lure more beauties into this area. That way, butterflies will stay and won’t go away.
8. English Cottage Garden Arrangement


Another butterfly-friendly garden landscaping worth trying is the English cottage arrangement. Like other cottage gardens, this idea is filled with various tones, from yellow to pink, to light up the space and invite butterflies to hang out. But somehow, it’s not overwhelming.
You can create a fairy-tale garden right here with coneflowers, black-eyed susans, phlox, and asters. Coneflowers will offer purple colors, while yellows are from the susans. As for groundcovers, phlox is the best bet! And aster is a terrific alternative to provide textures.
We’d love to add a mini bird bath with a fountain in this spot, so the flowing water will spark a calm feel while strolling around this area.
Perennial and Annual Butterfly Garden Designs
Perennials attract butterflies with their nectar and strong fragrance. These blooms are perfect for a butterfly-friendly garden. Check out our easy ideas to recreate these settings.
They’re also great for butterfly-watching!
9. Diverse Native Garden


Native plants are the best ones to lure butterflies in your garden. They provide food and shelter while butterflies give a good favor in return–helping them for pollination. Consider native perennials whose blooms offer nectars to suck on.
Asters and coneflowers are few of fantastic choices as they have a wide range of varieties that will paint your yard with flashy shades. To invite more beauties and avoid migration, plant anise hyssop next to the coneflowers. Consider herbs, like dill and parsley too for the caterpillars and repel unwanted insects.
10. Butterfly-Supporting Garden Setting


A butterfly garden with ecological balance and diversity is a treasure. It can help attract butterflies and conserve them as it mimics their favorable habitat for their entire lifecycle. To achieve that, growing flowering plants, like coneflowers, blazing stars, anise hyssop, and ground covers, are crucial.
They spark beautiful blooms with nectars, pollen, and lovely smell the butterflies love to flutter around. If you wish to have a mesmerizing sight, plant these flowers alternately. Do as best as you can to avoid merging the ones with similar flowers, like anise hyssop and blazing stars, in the same spot. Instead, match it with wide-bearing blooms to offer textures.
11. Sunny Garden Design


One vital aspect of creating a butterfly garden is setting aside a full-sun site. It is essential to boost these beauties’ energy as well as promote flower blossoms. Hence, we’d love to see a sunny garden design that provides the butterflies what they need.
Thankfully, most butterfly-friendly plants are sun lovers, so you can easily arrange them in your landscape. Some popular ones are black-eyed susan and coneflowers, as they have bright tones that contrast each other, just like in the picture. But you can try growing zinnia whose blooms are similar to the other ones. For the greenery, look no further than herbs and fennel.
12. Front Yard Perennial Heaven


In case you don’t have a vast backyard but a front yard one, opt for this front yard perennial heaven. With only three kinds of fragrance-rich flowers, you will have an alluring, perennial garden where the butterflies will die to hang around. Try to plant black-eyed susan to add vibrant yellow color.
Next to them, grow white Mexican sunflowers to create a stunning color contrast. Meanwhile, purple tones from coneflowers and blazing stars bid for feminine touches among the bright tones. Remember to install a small fountain that will work as a water feature for butterflies and birds.
13. Coneflower Garden Setting


We’ve mentioned coneflowers multiple times as they are one of the butterfly’s favorite plants. And here’s the idea if you want to have a garden full of these blooms. Since these adult butterflies suck on various flowers, growing diverse coneflowers will be best.
But first, arrange a bird bath in the middle of your garden to add a water feature. Then, grow purple coneflowers as the icon around the tub. Alternate the blooms with the white cultivars so the color will pop up. Give a proper space to avoid clumping. Introduce black-eyed susans to enliven the landscape, but it’s optional.
14. Bright Perennial Backyard


Having a backyard is a privilege since few are blessed with vast space in their home. If you are lucky, transforming your yard into a butterfly haven is a brilliant idea. Choose a full-sun site to start with. Then, plant some flowers against the fence to create a natural privacy hedge. To have a dense clump, grow upward-growing plants, like butterfly bush, penta, and joe pye weed.
Add zinnias and black-eyed susan to glow up the garden with bright colors. Now, set up a bench or two facing the garden and install retro bulb string lights with a warm tone to light up this space. Enjoy the breeze and tranquil atmosphere while butterfly-watching.
15. Black Eyed Susan Landscaping


Similar to coneflowers, black-eyed susan is worth a few times mentioning since butterflies love the blooms that much. No wonder many butterfly flowers include one in their gardens. We also have an idea to create a butterfly garden loaded with these blooms in your home.
There is no need for a vast space; just provide some spots along your garden fence. Instead of covering the soil with gravel or grass, black-eyed susan will do their best to liven up the space. Plus, this butterfly garden plant will invite pollinators to play around and suck on the nectar. You can also have a butterfly bush or weed to spice up this garden even more.
16. Butterfly-Friendly Porch Garden


Instead of letting your porch empty, spice it up a bit by turning this spot into a butterfly haven. Use your garden fence as the stake to support the flowers. You can grow black-eyed susans, or Mexican sunflowers at the base. And for the upward flowering plants, penta, joe pye weed, or butterfly weed are a few excellent picks.
Remember to install a butterfly home or nectar feeder to invite more beauties. Though the picture doesn’t show ground covers, you may try growing ones, like asters or coreopsis. But if you are too lazy to care for an overgrown garden, just cover the soil with gravel, and you’re all set!
17. Perennial Herbs Garden


Besides flowers, butterflies share their affection for herbs, particularly flowering ones. They find those fragrant plants pleasing as they emit a lovely scent and produce nectars too! Consider planting nectar-boost herbs like chives, catnip, cilantro, lavender, sage, and parsley.
Since chives bear fluffy purple flowers, grow them in raised beds. Use gray bricks to create a border and plant them in this spot. You can grow lavender in the inner layer, as they have similar colors yet different textures. These two will make excellent companion plants to deter pests from your garden while inviting pollinators to come around.
18. Whimsical Insect-Friendly Garden


When it comes to a butterfly garden, having a wide area to grow more flowers and plants is a plus. It will offer an amazing habitat for beneficial insects, including butterflies, whose population is now declining. You can convert your backyard into a flower bed with white asters. They create a pleasing sight to add charms to your outdoor space while providing food for butterflies.
To make it brighter, grow zinnias, coreopsis, or black-eyed susan that highlight vibrant yellow colors. In addition to butterfly garden plants, some accessories, like butterfly home, nectar feeder, or stakes, will be fantastic to arrange in your garden. In fact, they will make a comfy sanctuary for these jewel-winged creatures to stay and multiply.
Raised Beds Butterfly Garden Arrangements
If you live in an urban area or countryside but have only a narrow spot to make a butterfly garden, then raised beds and container gardening is the absolute answer. This approach allows you to grow flowers and invite butterflies with a little upkeep.
No need to rake the fallen flowers in the autumn! Check them out!
19. DIY Simple Pollinator Bed


This petite flower bed will be an instant favorite for those with small space. You don’t need to install a water feature, yet ensure the soil is fertile and moist to let the butterflies perch on. Some flowers you can grow in this bed include lantana, asters, and coreopsis. Choose ones with different colors so this setting won’t look dull.
To create the bed, prepare some wooden planks and cut them with the same sizes. Fill in organically rich, moist, well-drained soil and grow your nectar bloomers! Cover the ground with groundcovers, grasses, or gravel; it’s your call.
20. Zinnias Garden For Butterflies


Not only are zinnias popular among us, but butterflies are also madly in love with zinnias. As we all know, roses emit a strong, pleasant smell that attracts these rainbow-winged insects to perch on them. Besides, these blooms also produce nectars to feed them. If you want to lure them into your raised bed garden, you better grow various varieties in one spot.
That way, butterflies can enjoy nectar from mixed flowers though they are the same species. You can also try container gardening with zinnias if you live in an apartment. Put them on the balcony and see how many butterflies flutter there in the summer!
21. Colorful Zinnia Butterfly Garden Bed


Creating a raised garden bed does not always come with wooden containers or boxes. Just use stones to build a border along your garden fence. Besides, it saves space and money! Arrange the rocks into a long line.
Set some inner spaces as a planting area. You can grow zinnias, lantanas, or Mexican sunflowers here since they have small to medium sizes. And, thus, requiring minimal upkeep. As for the soil, you can fill it up with ground covers or grasses to prevent runoff.
22. Butterfly Bed For Small Garden


If you are getting bored with flowers growing in your raised bed, consider lantanas with herbs! These flowers quickly fill your wooden boxes with bursts of colorful shades, from pink, orange, and yellow to magenta. Also, the leaves grow dense as an amazing background, making the blooms’ color pop up even more.
Despite offering an eye-catching sight, textures, and diversities here are lacking. So, we recommend growing lantanas with salvia and sage. This combo works great as companion plants to attract butterflies and deter pests from your garden.
23. Low-Maintenance Flower Garden


For those who don’t like the hassle of taking care of a butterfly garden, this low-maintenance flower bed is an awesome alternative. Thanks to the wooden planters, you don’t need to rake for fallen flowers in the autumn nor be busy checking on the soil every time.
With this setting, you can plant a wide variety of flowers since the bed has quite a large space. We recommend growing zinnias, Mexican sunflowers, and lantanas. This blend will pamper your garden visitors with splashy colors and fragrant smells. To add textures, grasses like the blue stem are worth trying.
24. Vibrant Raised Bed Flower Garden


Well, this one may need extra space. But believe us, it will be worth the effort you put into planning and making one! It spoils butterflies with lavish magenta and pink flowers and tall purple blooms they will cherish. Among these lovely tones, introduce orange and red shades from Mexican flowers or zinnia.
For the greenery, fennel is the best bet. But dill, parsley, or rosemary are also amazing alternatives. Besides, you can harvest them to cook tasty meals. These herbs also help to repel pests! Since there’s a small space between the beds, arrange rocks for the butterflies to soak up under the sun.
25. Easy Cut-Flower Garden


Suppose you have a cut-flower garden; growing flowers that attract butterflies in your garden will be a plus. Not only can you harvest the blooms, but these beauties will help pollinate them, and you will get a surplus in return. One of the best cut-flowers, a butterfly’s favorite, is roses.
Their fragrant aroma lures butterflies to perch, sucks on nectars, and pollinates the blooms. Also, consider growing sunflowers and zinnias to add diversity to your cut-flower cultivation.
These nectar-rich bloomers will also provide splashes of color tones in your garden. Nothing to lose, right?
What Plant Attracts Butterflies the Most?
To create a butterfly garden, focus on plant selection to attract pollinators. Choose flowering plants that produce lovely fragrances and are rich in nectar and pollen. These plants should also provide safe shelter for butterflies.
Butterfly Bushes are popular for their dense, colorful flower clusters, but be cautious of invasive cultivars. Combine them with Lavender to repel mosquitoes.


Lantana blooms well in containers or raised beds, attracting butterflies. Coneflower and Black-Eyed Susan are great for replacing a dull fence and inviting butterflies.
For ground cover, Phlox is an excellent option. These plants will transform your garden into a butterfly haven, full of color and life. Enjoy watching these jewel-winged creatures thrive in your yard.
Where is the Best Place to Plant a Butterfly Garden?
Butterflies, being cold-blooded, thrive in sunny areas, making these spots ideal for butterfly garden landscaping. They use the sun to raise their body temperature and relax their muscles to flutter around.
Butterflies also enjoy eating while soaking up the sun.
Provide heat-retaining elements like rocks and sand for them to perch on, ensuring they are near flowers and water features. Most butterfly-friendly and caterpillar host plants also need sunlight to grow and bloom.


With these sun-loving settings, butterflies will be attracted to your garden. Additionally, grow a shade tree to offer shelter from the wind and the intense summer sun.
This tree provides a safe spot for mating and laying eggs. The shade tree helps caterpillars grow into butterflies. These elements will make your garden a butterfly haven.
Final Thought
A butterfly garden is full of flowers that provide nectar, pollen, and pleasant smells. Adding herbs and trees enhances the garden.
Creating a butterfly garden bed is easy and low-maintenance. Understanding key elements increases the chances of attracting butterflies. Mix annuals and perennials for a year-round blooming garden.
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FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
Do butterfly gardens need full sun?
In case you are planning to make a butterfly-friendly habitat in your area, you must consider a full sun spot. Not only is it necessary to promote the butterfly host plant’s growth, but such a condition is also important for these beauties to warm up.
Choose south-facing areas for the best light exposure and, thus, attracting butterflies to your garden.
How long can you keep butterflies in a butterfly garden?
Butterflies undergo a complete lifecycle, which includes eggs, larvae, pupae, and adult ones. Depending on the species, this period will take around 30 to 200 days. The longest one applies to monarch butterflies.
Unlike other flying creatures, migration is an option for adult butterflies. Generally, the lifespan of these flying beauties is around 2-3 weeks. As long as you grow flowering plants that provide a safe shelter and food, they tend to stay in the same small butterfly garden for all their lives.
Are butterfly gardens hard to maintain?
Butterfly garden maintenance is not that tricky as you mainly grow flowers around the area to provide a suitable habitat. All you need to do is to ensure you make proper butterfly garden layout plans before creating one.
You must choose a full sun area for the butterfly host plants to thrive and attract butterflies to your garden. Add water features, like a pond, mini fountain, or bird bath to offer drinks.
Instead of chemical fertilizers, use organic ones to supply the flowering plants growth. Avoid pesticides at all costs. Rather, you can grow companion plants if you deal with pests.
Do butterfly gardens attract mosquitoes?
Having a butterfly garden is indeed exciting, but oftentimes you have to deal with mosquitoes.
Some butterfly-friendly plants produce nectar, which is the culprits’ favorite food. One of which is a butterfly bush. Its nectar-rich flowers trigger frequent visits of this flying insect, especially in the summer.
So, you better grow mosquitoes-repelling plants along with butterfly bushes if you want to have one in your small butterfly garden.