Turn Your Yard Into a Butterfly Wonderland!
With the springtime comes the planting season! While ELS is planting new shrubs, trees, and cacti from our Wholesale Nursery in communities across the valley, residents are planning what to do with their backyards, planters, and private landscape spaces. Adding native plants is always recommended, as it improves the quality of life of the Sonoran Desert wildlife and the ecosystem as a whole, all while being beautiful and fitting into the natural landscape around us. Certain plants attract different pollinators, all of which are beneficial to the ecosystem as a whole. One group of helpful insects that is particularly threatened in the Sonoran Desert is the butterflies, as many of their primary food sources have been displaced by invasive species. To help create a haven for local butterflies, there are annual and perennial options that will look great in your yard this spring, most of them native to Arizona!
Perennial trees, bushes, and groundcover are, in the long term, the best ones to plant to create a desert butterfly habitat. You’ll only have to plant them once and you’ll have years of healthy native vegetation. The first classes of plants that must be mentioned in a conversation about butterflies are the Milkweed (Asclepias) genus and the Milkweed Vine (Funastrum) genus. The Desert Milkweed (Asclepias subulata) is the primary food source for Monarch Butterflies when they pass through Arizona during their yearly migration paths. It looks like a collection of neutrally-colored stalks that occasionally bloom in huge clusters of cream-colored bells. The Baja Fairy Duster (Calliandra californica) is another native option that is frequently covered in puffy red-pink flowers that butterflies and moths love. The Brittlebush (Encelia farinosa) is a great butterfly attractor, but it can be quite allergenic in large quantities. The blooms of any Mesquite Tree (Neltuma), while often messy, bring in pollinators of all sorts. The same can be said for the iconic Desert Willow (Chilopsis linearis). Dozens of other choices exist as well that can be found at most Arizona nurseries.
There are also good annual options to plant in garden beds or sow as seeds for the springtime bloom. The Coulter’s Lupine (Lupinus sparsiflorus) makes small stalks of blue flowers that butterflies go crazy for. The Mexican Hat flower (Ratibida columnifera), California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica), Globe Mallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua), and Gaillardia (Gaillardia aristata) are other options that you’ll see springing up in the desert every year.
While native plants are certainly preferred whenever possible, there are several non-native options that are beneficial to butterflies as well. Several plants from northern Mexico and the Chihuahua Desert would be the next best thing to Arizona natives: the Wooly Butterfly Bush (Buddleja marrubiifolia), Lantana (Lantana) genus, Passion Flower (Passiflora) Vines, Queen’s Wreath (Antigonon leptopus) Vines, Tecoma (Tecoma) bushes, various Acacia (Acacia) species, Mexican Bird of Paradise (Caesalpinia) species, and countless others.
At ELS Maintenance & Construction, we install plants that are beneficial to the important pollinators in the desert. If you know of a community or commercial center that needs new landscapers, email [email protected] and we can get started!
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