Luring the butterfly

Everybody likes butterflies. They're so lovely, so graceful in their swoops as they look for a free meal. Nothing can be finer than to sit on the patio and watch a monarch dashing about.

Problem is, how do you get them to come visiting?

One lure is the butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii). Butterfly bushes are perennials - back bigger and better every year. Many call them shrubs. This perennial plant is a native to China but landed here long ago.

Butterfly bushes are great lures in attracting tiger swallowtails. But they also bring in hummingbirds - plus bees. Those bees will pollinate other plants in your garden.

Exact plant characteristics will vary. Growing conditions affect the plant's final size. Butterfly bushes can grow large (keep this in mind while planting them) reaching 6 to 12 feet high with a spread of 4 to 15 feet.

The flowers on butterfly bushes can be purple, pink, white, or red and they usually have an orange "throat" in the center. Butterfly bush plants will bloom throughout the summer, leaves are lance-like and gray-green. Red-flowering varieties like B. davidii Royal Red particularly will attract hummingbirds, who supplement their nectar diet with protein-rich insects on the bush. Watch for other birds seeking an insect meal.

This is a hardy plant. You prune them down to the ground in late fall or winter. The bush will come back energetically in spring. The new growth will be more prolific than ever, with larger blossoms. Treat it like a herbaceous perennial rather than as a shrub.

Taking care of butterfly bushes? Mulch in the fall. Butterfly bush plants like full sun and a well-drained soil. Luckily for us in Nevada, butterfly bushes are pretty much drought-tolerant.

The bush bears long flower spikes with clusters of flowers. As a tall plant, butterfly bush is an excellent plant for the back of a perennial border. The natural unruliness of butterfly bush plant lends itself to use in "cottage gardens."

The bush tolerates urban pollution and Nevada's alkaline soil. It's generally pest-free, except for spider mite infestations during drought or stress. It prefers a sunny spot, a light application of fertilizer in spring, and a few deep waterings in summer. Watch for volunteer seedlings. Remove them.

Butterfly weed

Don't confuse butterfly bush with butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa). Butterfly weed is a type of milkweed and serves as a host for the caterpillars of monarch butterflies. Adult tiger swallowtails and black swallowtails enjoy its nectar. Both butterfly weed and butterfly bush are sometimes referred to simply as "the butterfly plant." Butterfly weed, however, is entirely unrelated to the bush.

So once you've got the butterflies and hummingbirds in your yard, how do you keep them happy? Put out liquid bird feeders for the hummingbirds and water for the butterflies. Free meal or not, the butterflies will still come. After all, you've grown a butterfly bush.

• Contact Sam Bauman at sbauman@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1236.