Which wildflower is the best for attracting butterflies in your experiences? I would love to try and get some good photos of them this year, so rather than waiting for them to come to me I thought I would learn a bit about where Im most likely to find them!
The flower of the Buddleia I think is a good one for butterflies, Im going to keep a lookout for it this year.
There are lots of good butterfly attracting plants - either because they are a caterpillar foodplant or a good nectar source. Not surprisingly different butterflies are attracted to different plants. This is also linked to the emergence times of both flowers and butterflies.
Buddleia is a great nectar source but in my experience tend to attract lots of a few species (mainly aristrocrat butterflies like peacock and red admiral). Most common meadow flowers are good - field scabious, black knapweed and bird's foot trefoil in particular and herbs like wild thyme and marjoram. You also can't beat a good nettle bed. Ragwort is also pretty good.
Your local county butterfly conservation group should have a website with latest sightings on it to help guide you to what's about and where. I would also recommend a good field guide which will list the plant associations of each species.
Find a site with lots of habitat and structural diversity, with plenty of sunny areas and you should find a good range of species. Being cold blooded they are more sluggish and easier to photograph on cooler, slighty overcast days. Happy hunting.
A good strategy is to try to plant a variety of flowers that flower at different times of the year to extend the season. Early flowering plants include cowslip, forget-me-not and primrose. Summer ones include buddleia, lady's smock and marigold, finally the late flowering plants are such as lavender, fuchsia and ice plants. Extending the season as long as possible gives you the best possible chance of getting a good range - you may even get 2 well spaced out visits from some species like Comma butterflies.
That's great advice to spread out the flowering times, meaning you have butterflies there the whole year and a wide range of species. I think I may well try it!
Try Scabious-Small, field & Devils bit & Majoram too they really love these plants in my garden
