Text and photos by Pamela Grundy reporting for Native Plant News Summer 2025
The orange-winged butterfly skips through my garden – touching down, rising, touching down, rising again. Eventually she alights on a passionflower vine. She briefly curls her body before flying off again. She leaves behind a gleaming yellow egg.
A few days later, ragged edges on the passionflower leaves signal that a Fritillary caterpillar is at work. Deep red and covered with black spikes, it will eat for perhaps a week, shedding skins as it grows. When it has had its fill, it finds a secluded spot, disposes of a final skin, and hardens into a chrysalis that resembles a dead leaf. A few days later a new butterfly emerges.
One of the great pleasures of a native plant garden is the abundant life it nurtures. Butterflies flit; caterpillars munch. Other creatures multiply.
A successful butterfly garden requires careful plant selection. While butterflies can sip nectar from almost any flower, most caterpillars can digest a limited number of leaves. Monarch caterpillars, which only eat milkweed, are the best-known example.
A female butterfly must find the right plant to lay her eggs. If you see a butterfly flying from one leaf to another, it’s probably a female looking for a host plant. Many butterflies have scent glands in their feet. They judge a leaf’s suitability by giving it a gentle tap.
The more host plants you grow, the more life you nurture. Host plants feed caterpillars, which feed birds, spiders, lizards, and other creatures, which balance ecosystems.
Among my favorites: passionvine for red and black Fritillary caterpillars, Golden Aexander for brightly striped Eastern Black Swallowtails; spicebush for Spicebush Swallowtails with their bright yellow eyespots; senna for slim green Sulphurs; and of course milkweed, which nurtures not only Monarchs but an entire community of creatures.
Butterflies need nectar plants as well. A succession of blooms will keep these charming visitors in your garden all summer long, feeding on plants such as phlox and columbine in spring; bee balm, summersweet, and mountain mint in summer; goldenrod and asters in the fall. Planting these and other nectar plants in large groups will help attract butterflies’ attention, and you may well see several different kinds nectaring at once. Nectar plants also feed native bees, important pollinators whose numbers have been dropping.
Moths of many kinds will visit your garden. One species of tussock moth lays eggs on milkweed, which hatch into furry caterpillars clad in tufts of white, orange, brown, and black. You may spy a dramatically colored Saddleback caterpillar, named for the green patch that drapes across its back. Steer clear of it – the sting can hurt for hours.
Many moth caterpillars feed on tree leaves: oak, hickory, sweetgum, pecan and more. If you have a large tree, surrounding its base with a well-mulched native garden will help protect caterpillars that need spots to overwinter as well as softening the landing of the cocoons that fall down with the autumn leaves.
Children delight in butterflies, eggs, and caterpillars, as well as the bees, spiders, lizards, and other creatures that populate a native plant garden. For ten years, I ran the butterfly gardens at Shamrock Gardens Elementary School in Charlotte. Our students learned to identify multiple butterflies and searched eagerly for eggs and caterpillars. They discovered bright red milkweed beetles, black-and-golden garden spiders and spindly daddy long-legs. They came to love them all – or at least most of them. When the bees from our beehive swarmed one day, they reacted not with fear, but with elation.
We also raised caterpillars in our classrooms – caterpillars that came from our gardens, rather than arriving through the mail. Students eagerly monitored each cat’s progress, delighting in shed skins and balls of frass. They witnessed chrysalis formation and sometimes squealed with joy when butterflies emerged.
Like many of their fellow creatures, butterflies suffer from loss of habitat and increasing amounts of toxic chemicals, including those sprayed on yards and gardens by mosquito-control firms. An unsprayed garden full of native plants provides a much-needed refuge. The caterpillars are also an important source of food for birds, lizards, spiders, and many other creatures, making them a key component of balanced ecosystems and the cycle of life.
Planting and tending butterfly gardens has been one of the great pleasures of my life. I never tire of watching the determination with which caterpillars devour leaves, the bright orange flash of Monarchs descending on a patch of milkweed, the darting motions of a group of skippers nectaring on a swath of blooms. I recommend it highly.
Children delight in butterflies, eggs, and caterpillars, as well as the bees, spiders, lizards, and other creatures that populate a native plant garden. For ten years, I ran the butterfly gardens at Shamrock Gardens Elementary School in Charlotte. Our students learned to identify multiple butterflies and searched eagerly for eggs and caterpillars. They discovered bright red milkweed beetles, black-and-golden garden spiders and spindly daddy long-legs. They came to love them all – or at least most of them. When the bees from our beehive swarmed one day, they reacted not with fear, but with elation.
Pamela Grundy is a writer, historian, and butterfly gardener in Charlotte, North Carolina. She recently published Butterfly Gardening in the Carolina Piedmont, which offers tips for gardening, butterfly watching, and caterpillar raising. The Spanish translation is titled Jardines y Mariposas. Both are available at a few local bookstores and on Amazon. The English version can be viewed online for free at Queen City Nerve. More information can also be found on Grundy’s gardening website, ncswallowtail.org.