Plants for Butterflies and Other Pollinators

Showing 97–104 of 223 results

  • Hemerocallis ‘Dark Skies ’  Z 4-9

    Tetraploid Daylily.  Purple touched with maroon-colored blossoms. Slightly ruffled petal edges and smooth sepal edges. Green-gold eye. Blooms in July.

    $9.95/bareroot

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    Tetraploid Daylily.  Purple touched with maroon-colored blossoms. Slightly ruffled petal edges and smooth sepal edges. Green-gold eye. Blooms in July.

    Size: 23-28” tall Blossoms 5.5” across
    Care: sun in most any soil

    Tetraploid Daylily.  Purple touched with maroon-colored blossoms. Slightly ruffled petal edges and smooth sepal edges. Green-gold eye. Blooms in July.

  • Hesperaloe parviflora Red Yucca Z 6-9

    Cerise scarlet trumpets up and down the flower spike in summer

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    Cerise scarlet trumpets up and down the flower spike in summer

    Size: 3’ x 5’
    Care: sun moist well-drained to dry soil
    Native: Europe, west & central Asia
    Wildlife Value: Attracts butterflies & hummingbirds. Deer and rabbit tolerant,

    Named by Dr. George Engelmann, a German physician and plant fanatic who emigrated to America in the early 1800’s, settling in St. Louis.

  • Heuchera versicolor syn. H. rubescens var. versicolor Pink alumroot Z 4-10

    Tiny pink bells on narrow inflorescence blooming mid to late summer

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    Tiny pink bells on narrow inflorescence blooming mid to late summer

    Size: 8-12” x 12"
    Care: prefers part shade in moist well-drained to well drained soil, can grow in sun with moist soil. Deer resistant.
    Native: southwestern US
    Wildlife Value: attracts bees, butterflies and hummingbirds

    First collected in 1904 on damp, shady bluffs of the Black Range in New Mexico, accd. to Edward Lee Greene.

    The roots are astringent and can also be used as an alum substitute, used in fixing dyes. Was also used medicinally for fever, diarrhea, venereal disease, liver ailments, eyewash, colic and animal care.  Heuchera is named for Johann Heinrich von Heucher (1677-1747), while rubescens means becoming red or reddish, and versicolor means variously colored.

  • Hibiscus moscheutos Rose mallow Z 5-9

    August and September, bodacious, white, pink or crimson platters, looking like the tropics.

    $12.95/bareroot

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    August and September, bodacious, white, pink or crimson platters, looking like the tropics.

    Size: 5-8' x 3'
    Care: Sun, moist to moist well-drained soil, no staking needed.
    Native: Southern U.S.
    Wildlife Value: Attracts butterflies esp. Cloudless Sulphur butterflies relish Rose mallow’s nectar.

    One Native American tribe used this plant to cure inflamed bladders. 1st collected by Rev. John Banister (1649-1692) who moved to colonial Virginia in 1678.  A gunman mistakenly shot and killed him while he collected plants. Cultivated by Lady Skipworth in her colonial Virginia garden.  Bloomed for Jefferson in July, 1767. Grown at America’s 1st botanic garden, Elgin Botanic Garden 1811.

  • Holodiscus discolor Creambush, Ocean spray Z 5-10

    Multistemmed shrub with dense, elegant pyramidal clusters of arching cream-colored flowers in early to mid summer. Leaves tint red in fall.

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    Multi-stemmed shrub with dense, elegant pyramidal clusters of arching cream-colored flowers in early to mid-summer. Leaves tint red in fall.

    Size: 4-8’ x 8’
    Care: sun to part shade in moist to moist well-drained soil
    Native: Montana to Colorado west to the Pacific.
    Wildlife Value: nectar for hummingbirds, food for butterfly caterpillars, bird habitat.

    Hard and durable wood was used to make digging sticks, spears, harpoon shafts, bows, and arrows by nearly all coastal Native groups. A few used the wood to make sticks to barbeque salmon, fish hooks, needles for weaving and knitting, Pegs were made to use like nails. Others made wood intoarmor plating and canoe paddles.
    A few Natives made an infusion of boiled fruit to cure diarrhea, measles, chickenpox and as a blood tonic.  Collected by Meriwether Lewis in today’s Idaho on the Clearwater River, May 29, 1806 en route back east on  the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

  • Humulus lupulus Hops Z 4-8

    climber bearing papery cones, green turning straw colored

    $14.95/bareroot

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    Vigorous 20′ tall climber bearing papery cones, green turning straw colored from August to October.

    Size: 20' x 3'
    Care: Sun to part shade in moist to moist well-drained soil
    Native: Europe
    Wildlife Value: attracts butterflies

    Transported from continental Europe to England in 1524.  Flowers used for brewing since ancient times. Added to ale to add flavor and as a preservative.  In the late 1500’s Gerard claimed that hops seasoned ale and”make it a physical drinke to keep the body in health, rather than an ordinary drinke for the quenching of our thirst.”  Russians crowned the heads of brides with its foliage to bring “joy, abundance and intoxication.”  Others put dried hops into pillows to relieve insomnia.  Imported to America by the mid 1600’s where it was used for its ornamental qualities, to provide shade and to make beer.   Cherokee adopted hops to relieve pain caused by rheumatism. Grown by Jefferson at Monticello.

  • Hunnemannia fumariifolia Goldencup, Mexican Tulip Poppy Z 9-11, Annual in colder areas

    All summer and fall sunny, crepe-papery petals with jagged edges center around orange anthers all carried above thin-leaved blue-grey foliage.

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    All summer and fall sunny, crepe-papery petals with jagged edges center around orange anthers all carried above thin-leaved blue-grey foliage.

    Size: 6-12" x 6-12"
    Care: sun in moist, well-drained to well-drained soil
    Native: highlands of Mexico, TX, NM & AZ

    Described and named by English botanist Robert Sweet (1783-1835) in The British Flower Garden vol. 3 (1828). Named for John Hunnemannia

  • Ipomopsis aggregata Standing cypress, Skyrocket, Scarlet gilia Z 4-11 Reseeding biennial

    Showy red trumpets along leafless stem brighten summer-fall garden

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    Many attention-grabbing red-carrot trumpets march up a leafless spike to brighten the late summer-fall garden

    Size: 3-5’ x 12”
    Care: sun to part shade in moist well-drained to well-drained soil
    Native: west from ND, south to TX to the Pacific.
    Wildlife Value: attracts bees, Swallowtail butterflies and flocks of hummingbirds. Deer resistant.
    Size: Hopi made it into decorations and dye. Klamath children sucked nectar from the flowers. Navajo remedied many ailments with this – spider bites. stomach ailments, and induce purging. And they grew it for its beauty. Canada’s Salish washed face and hair and eyes with this. Shoshone remedied pains of rheumatism by crushing the plants and applying it to the aches, sexually transmitted diseases, itches, a tonic for blood and used it to induce vomiting.

    Collected by Meriwether Lewis on the Lewis and Clark Expedition along the Lolo Trail crossing the Bitterroot Range of the Rockies, June 26 1806. Named and described initially by Frederick Pursh in Flora Americae Septronalis Vol1 p. 147 (1813) from the plant collected by Lewis on the Lewis and Clark Expedition.