When considering varieties of plants, remember that butterflies like two different kinds: those that provide nectar for the adults to eat, and those that provide food for their offspring. As with every other type of garden, regionally adapted plants are the way to go.
In this part of the country, sturdy and easy-to-grow phlox will attract butterflies to areas of the garden in full sun. Other top nectar-producing flower choices include varieties of Clethra Alnifolia like the fragrant Costal Sweetpepper Bush or Ruby Spice, the Dense Blazing Star plant (Liatrus Spicata), common lilacs, common milkweed (also good as food for caterpillars), New England asters, grass-leaved goldenrod and forget-me-nots. Wild mint, wild basil and lavender bee balm will also attract many species of butterflies in this region. Top caterpillar-food plants include willow, elm and white oak trees, Queen Anne’s lace, red clover and wild lupine. And of course, it can’t be emphasized enough: pesticides have no place in a butterfly garden.
Shaggy chic
Much residential land is covered in grass. That’s not news to anyone who has a large lawn to care for. Some homeowners are taking their lawns out entirely and planting a low-maintenance natural meadow in its place: a shaggy-chic approach that thumbs its nose at the finely manicured and embraces the greener approach that uses less water, chemical fertilizer and energy resources.
At Manhattan’s High Line park, landscape designers went on the record recently saying that grasses have become so popular a trend these days as to constitute “a fashion,” and that an “undone” meadow look contrasts nicely with the hard edges of modern architecture.
(My mom was an early adherent to the no-lawn philosophy, taking out our entire lawn one summer when she tired of asking my brothers repeatedly to mow it and planting the most resilient, low-care plant she could think of in our southern California climate in its place, the ferociously quick-growing jade plant. Accented by copious amounts of bark — we did corner the market on bags of bark that year — we had the most unique, low-care lawn in the neighborhood, and one that was quite beautiful.)
