Help attract beneficial bees and butterflies

Make your garden more hospitable to bees and butterflies!

  • Reduce the use of pesticides
  • Plant nectar-rich food that blooms through the summer
  • Provide a shallow water source and a flat rock
  • Leave a small patch of bare ground for bees to establish underground nests

Bees are most attracted to white, yellow, blue, pink and purple flowers. Try planting wild lilac, western and eastern redbud, flowering quince, cranesbill, lavender, catmint, rhododendron, rose and salvia.

Butterflies need a food source all summer long, so try: yarrow, hyssop, anemone, aster, bluebeard, tickseed, foxglove, coneflower, potentilla, bee balm, Russian sage, blackeyed Susan, pincushion flower, stonecrop, spirea, verbena, milkweed and butterfly bush.

Originally published on May 1st, 2012. Updated on May 4th, 2021.