Admiral butterflies in the garden

February 2026

Monarch butterfly and honeybee on helenium

Monarch butterflies have been in the butterfly garden daily since mid-January and they have brought a lot of joy, as have the colourful blooms. What has made things even more exciting over the last week has been the admirals in the flower garden for the first time.

Red admiral on buddleia

One of the red admirals I raised and released stayed for a few days and I stalked it as it spent time amongst the flowers. The yellow admiral that came in to lay eggs on recovering nettles on three occasions also found the flowers and is still around. She may have been one of those that came in with the reds and I released, or she may be a fully wild butterfly. She's pretty tatty, but she's doing fine.

Yellow admiral on Achillea millefolium

It seems that the admiral butterflies are braver than the blackbirds and doves that get regularly chased away from the garden by the territorial male monarchs. That, or they are not seen as a threat, being smaller. I am not sure what the birds think will happen if the monarchs catch them but they are definitely intimidated by the butterflies. We have been able to have the doors open and not worry about the blackbirds coming inside the house any more. It probably also helps that they are no longer raising young and need extra food.

The common blues are in the garden at the moment too and laying eggs on the clovers that are taking over the flower beds. With the snail vines still pretty small and the sweet peas long gone I need a solution that means the flower beds are not taken over with weeds, not because of the aesthetics, although that is a consideration, but because they are killing the other plants that are low-growing or trying to get established. Perhaps I need to grow some weeds in pots until I can research something else less thuggy that will allow the blue caterpillars to feed. I have tried a pot of white clover before at the last house, but it didn't seem to attract the butterflies. However, it may be more effective here. The clover and trefoil flowers have been a huge source of nectar for bees and the small butterflies, but there are a lot of other nectar flowers for pollinators to feed from.

Common blue on white clover

The cabbage whites are here too. I don't have plants specifically for them, but they have again been the first butterflies around this season and kept my hopes up for the garden until the native species piled in later.

Cabbage white butterfly on verbena 'Vanity'

This post is mostly just an excuse to share my stalker photos and perhaps share some of the joy the butterflies have brought me. It also means that in the second year of the garden, I have had a copper butterfly visit, likely a coastal copper, both the long-tailed blue and the common blue have laid their eggs in the garden, a yellow admiral laid her eggs and a red admiral visited, although that one is a little bit like cheating. The garden is also home to a generation of monarchs - at least five in the garden today. This is all I could ask for from the butterfly garden. I hope that as the garden matures, grows, thickens, that it will provide a year round habitat to our native and endemic butterflies.