Flowers for the common blue butterfly
- Birkenhead Butterflies
- Mar 30
- 2 min read
A butterfly-led tour of the butterfly garden
March 2025
I am always happy to see blue butterflies in the garden and even happier to see them staying to enjoy the nectar. After all, that's what the butterfly garden is for. However, I have never seen blues stay in the garden for so long as I did a week ago.
I watched a pair go from flower to flower and it really let me see what flowers worked for them. Common blues fly close to the ground - it's one way to identify them - and the idea is that they will favour flowers low to the ground as well.
The butterflies fed from:
Lawn daisies
Catsear
Strawflower
Trailing lantana
Houhere / lacebark
White clover
Calendula
Buddleia
Buttercup
Ageratum
Heliotrope in a tall planter
Alyssum
It's worth noting that they enjoyed lawn flowers as much, if not more, than the brought in border flowers. It goes to show you don't need to spend lots of money to attract them. Just let your grass grow, or mow on a high setting.
Where the low-flower theory was tested was when one of the butterflies fed from the flowers of houhere, a native tree, also called lacebark. Forest and Bird report that admirals like lacebark and I've seen moths enjoying the flowers at night, but it is clearly worth the blue flying up to a higher level than its regular food sources to feed from these flowers too. It's like one of us going up the Skytower for a meal!
If I look on iNaturalist at Auckland specifically, there are a lot of sightings on white clover and catsear, but I can see this butterfly will also feed from the flowers of:
wild carrot
different types of hebes
dahlia
nipplewort (I think)
Verbena bonariensis
lavender
michaelmas daisies
mexican daisies
scabiosa
gaura
knotweed
native panakenake. Lobelia angulata.
I'd be really interested to know what flowers you have seen common blues on. Please comment below.
Comments