It is difficult for me to picture a flower garden without including butterflies. It is always a delight to watch a swallowtail or a monarch flutter from flower to flower, pausing at each to search for nectar.

Butterflies have four life cycle stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Butterfly adults lay their eggs on particular plants that their caterpillars will want to eat when they hatch out. Monarchs, for example like to lay their eggs on common milkweed plants. If you grow parsley, you may have been startled by a large striped caterpillar feeding on the leaves. That caterpillar later becomes a swallowtail. Those little white butterflies fluttering about your cabbage and broccoli plants are busy laying eggs on them. From those eggs will hatch little green caterpillars that will eat holes in the plant leaves. You can control the caterpillars without harming the butterflies by using Dipel.

Some gardeners really get into this butterfly thing and try to assemble a garden that will be attractive to both the adult and caterpillar stages. This can take some study and if this is the route you want to take, I recommend you visit the library and learn about the desires of the butterflies you want to attract to your garden.

Most gardeners, however, enjoy the adult butterflies fluttering in the garden, but prefer that those ugly caterpillars live somewhere else. So I'm going to suggest a few plants that are attractive to adult butterflies, but let you do your own research if you plan to do a dedicated butterfly garden.

A plant that can be guaranteed to attract butterflies is butterfly bush, Buddleia davidii. This plant is a butterfly magnet. In our climate it is a die-back shrub, meaning it behaves like a perennial-the top freezes and dies, but the root survives the winter. A little farther south in Zone 6, butterfly bush is a woody shrub that can get 6 to 12 feet tall. Around here, though, some varieties will grow to 5 or 6 feet before being stopped by winter cold. Buddleia is slow to start in the spring and you should not cut it back until you see signs of new growth, which sometimes doesn't appear until mid May.

There are several varieties of Buddleia with various shades of purple, red, or white flowers. Buddleia 'Black Night' is a heavy bloomer with dark purple flowers that call butterflies to the garden. In this area, 'Black Knight' grows to about 6 feet. The flowers are long lasting and can be used in arrangements.

A variegated leaf form, Buddleia 'Harlequin', has reddish purple flowers and white margined leaves. Its smaller stature makes it a good choice for small gardens.

Several perennials are butterfly favorites. Purple coneflower attracts both monarchs and swallowtails. Without much care, coneflower will grow in almost any soil. It blooms most of the summer if planted where it can bask in at least a half day of sunlight. I think it is the easiest way to draw butterflies to the garden. Monarda, Sedum, butterfly weed, garlic chives, and asters are other good nectar sources.