For those interested in a small, colorful butterfly and hummingbird garden, I’ve listed what’s planted around my potato tree in a 10- by 30-foot plot (listed mostly by height, definitely not by girth of adult plants):
- Caesalpinia, Caesalpinia Mexicana – attracts hummingbirds and butterflies
- Potato tree, Solanum erianthum, — all sorts of fun. See “Consider the Potato Tree” blog
- Vasey’s Adelia, Adelia vaseyi, — Mexican bluewing butterfly host plant
- Coral bean tree, Erythrina herbacea, — hummingbirds
- Turk’s cap – Malvaviscus drummondii – hummingbird and butterfly nectar plant – can get unruly; does best in partial shade. Host to mallow scrub-hairstreak and Turk’s cap white-skipper butterflies.
- Blue and red porterweed, Stachytarpheta jamaicensis and Stachytarpheta urticifolia – butterfly nectar plants, hummingbirds
- Three milkweeds, — host to monarch and queen butterflies
- Tropical milkweed, Asclepias curassavica, — up to 28 inches tall
- Zizotes, Asclepias oenotheroides – average height is 12-15 inches
- Climbing milkweed, Funastrum cynanchoides; (trained up a tree at the end of the garden).
- Texas lantana, Lantana urticoides, — great nectar plant for butterflies
- Blue mistflower, Chromolaena odorata fall-blooming, great butterfly nectar plant
- Spring mistflower, Tamaulipa azurea – butterfly nectar plant
- Trixis, Trixis inula – nectar, butterflies
- Scarlet sage, Salvia coccinea – attracts hummingbirds and butterflies
- Heliotrope, Heliotropium agniospermum – nectar, attracts blues, skippers and other small butterflies
- Pigeon berry, Rivina humilis – chachalacs and other birds eat the berries
- Ruella, Ruellia nudiflora – host to several butterflies including malachite and white peacock
- Runyon’s water willow, Justica runyonii – host to malachite butterfly
- Snapdragon vine, Maurandya antirrhiniflora – host for common buckeye butterfly
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