Visit to Franklin Farm's butterfly house

March 2025

Part of the new butterfly house at Franklin Farm

I managed to squeeze in a visit to Franklin Farm out near Muriwai, West Auckland, to see their new butterfly house before they closed it for the season. It was their first year of operating the butterfly house, but they have been successfully attracting visitors to their sunflower fields for years.

It was AMAZING! The butterfly house was large and filled with monarch butterflies. To be surrounded by them on all sides, on the plants, in the air, was so special. I could have stayed there for hours.

The colour of all the flowers was also absolutely delightful. Even without the butterflies, it would have been a lovely garden to visit. AND I had an ulterior motive. In putting together a butterfly garden of my own I was curious to see what plants they had grown for the butterflies and what flowers the butterflies were favoring.

It is not straightforward to list the plants the butterflies will be attracted to and the Moths and Butterflies Trust of New Zealand (MBNZT) provide native and non-native suggestions, but caveat these. I can understand why. I've seen monarchs on dwarf zinnias and blue plumbago in gardens when I never attracted them with the same plants. I've had monarchs on my old multi-petalled David Austin roses and these are never recommended flowers for butterflies, which generally prefer an open flower. Some of the flowers that work well for overseas species of butterflies, don't work well in New Zealand. To see what was working in the same region as my own garden was important.

At Franklin Farm there were butterflies on nearly all the plants in the butterfly house, but there were definitely some favourites. Some were surprising and some were expected.

Monarchs on a white buddleia

As you can imagine, buddleia or buddleja was right up there. There are not a lot of cultivars available in New Zealand, probably because they are usually based on buddleia davidii, which is a pest species here. It is such a problem to the forestry industry, they introduced the buddleia weevil into New Zealand to try and address the problem and the little troublemakers will happily attack a number of garden varieties. If you are not familiar with buddleia weevils, the larvae are like little yellow slugs, which makes squishing them particularly messy and icky. I found it interesting that the buddleia in the butterfly house had not escaped the curse of the weevils, but speaking with one of the family, the buddleia outside had actually fared better. I was very jealous of the beautiful colours they had, as I have mainly purple varieties, including Lochinch.

Monarchs on goldenrod

Just look at that solidago! I was ordering goldenrod from Egmont Seeds as soon as I got home! It was that covered in butterflies for all the time I was there.

One pleasant surprise was mexican bush sage, Salvia leucantha. It was already on my wishlist because it is a beautiful plant and I know it is popular with bees. Now I know its a butterfly plant too, I'll be ordering a couple for the next stage of the garden.

Monarchs on mexican bush sage

What else? Dahlias, were popular, which are the only flower that has failed in my new garden. Loads of different salvias. Verbena. Sunflowers, directly from their fields, were very popular. Lantana montevidensis - an orange variety was more popular than the lavender colour. Marigolds. Helenium. Gaura. Heliotrope. Ageratum. Kiss Me Over the Garden Gate was covered in butterflies and I'd never even heard of it before. It was a great collection of butterfly plants.

I heartily recommend a visit when they re-open next Spring.