Refreshing the Butterfly Garden for Fall

It’s the first day of fall! We’re anxiously awaiting the cooler temperatures soon to arrive, and getting ready to refresh the gardens for the beautiful autumn weather ahead. Once all the overgrowth of summer is cleared away, there’s often not much left behind for butterflies and other wildlife to enjoy. It’s time to add some fresh new nectar plants to the beds, but the plants we can find in fall are often different than the ones available in spring. While mums are pretty popular at nurseries this time of year, they don’t add much to a butterfly garden.

However, there are four plants you can find pretty much year-round in Central Florida, and these are the ones we’ll be looking for when we bring the gardens back to life this fall. If you live in the area, you can do the same and help out butterflies in the months ahead.

Pentas or Star Flower (Pentas lanceolata): All colors of this annual are a draw for butterflies, but red seems to be especially popular. We’ll have to water well during any remaining hot days – Pentas don’t really tolerate drought until they’re very well established.


Milkweed (Asclepias curassavica): This is well-known as a host plant for Monarchs, but the flowers provide valuable nectar too. Plant as much as you can get your hands on to help monarchs arriving from the north for the winter.




Lantana (Lantana spp.): These tiny clusters of flowers never fail to bring butterflies to the garden. Remember that in some places, non-native Lantana camara is considered invasive. Plant less troublesome cultivars like “New Gold” to avoid potential problems later.


Mealycup Sage (Salvia farinacea) and Tropical Sage (Salvia coccinea): Almost all salvia types are great nectar providers (except ornamental Salvia splendens), but S. farinacea is probably the easiest to find. We have plenty of S. coccinea, but there’s always room for more of this fantastic native that reseeds like crazy.