Best Pollinator Plants for Austin Gardens
Gregg’s mistflower and Queen Butterfly
Want to attract hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies to your landscape? Whether you’re building a pollinator garden or looking to boost yield in your vegetable garden, planting native flowering perennials adds bright season-long color while supporting local Texas wildlife.
Whatever your goal, planting pollinator-friendly varieties adds lasting beauty while supporting beneficial insects. There are a wide range of Texas native plants as well as adapted plants the pollinators adore.
At Vivero Growers Nursery, we grow and stock a wide selection of heat-tolerant native and adapted plants tailored for Austin landscapes. Whether you want bold seasonal color or specific pollinator favorites, we have the varieties to bring your yard to life.
If you are looking for some options and ideas here are a few of our favorites:
Monarch butterfly on Lantana at Vivero Growers Nusery
Lantana is an all time favorite for most any pollinator garden. When people think butterfly plants, they think Lantana. It not only attracts them to your yard, it adds vibrant color to your landscape. It pairs easily with other perennials, ornamental grasses and yuccas to create layering effects, depth and texture.
Plumbago is a excellent choice especially if you have an area that is a little on the shady side. The Swallowtail seem to flock to this plant, though you will see all kinds of other butterflies, Hummingbird Moths and bees on it as well. The wonderful thing about the Plumbago is it is easily sheared and blooms spring thru fall.
Salvia greggii is available in a wide range of colors and is a semi-evergreen option. Most all of the greggii will stay around 3′ x 3′ and bloom spring thru the first frost. The tubular blooms are definite favorites of the hummingbirds. Similarly the bees and butterflies gravitate towards the Salvia blooms. The Salvia greggii is probably the #2 when it comes to favorite butterfly plants.
- Almond Verbena is a popular choice for butterfly gardens. This shrub produces fragrant flowers that bloom late spring thru the fall. The butterflies and bees are a frequent visitor to this shrub.
Texas native Rock Rose
- Rock Rose, Pavonia, is a favorite of both the bees and the butterflies and believe it or not the hummingbirds as well. This Texas native perennial has a wonderful bright pink bloom that resembles a Hibiscus. It is a shorter shrub that can grow about 3-4′ which makes it nice for middle layering in the landscape. The Rock Rose does well in Austin, Texas and the hill country area and takes the heat of the summer as well as our wacky winters. It looks fantastic planted alongside grasses, Yuccas as well as other flowering perennials.
- Passion Vine is a host plant for the Gulf Fritillary Butterfly. They are available in a variety of colors, purple and white are the most common. Do not worry if you walk out one day and all your leaves on your vine are gone- if you get a closer look, you will see lots of caterpillars. After that, will have lots of beautiful butterflies in your garden and landscape and your leaves will reappear.
Antelope Milkweed and Gray Hairstreak Butterfly
There are host plants you can plant to attract specific butterflies that they prefer.
For example, the above mentioned Passion Vine is a host plant for the Gulf Fritillary and the Texas native Antelope Milkweed for the Monarchs and the Queen Butterflies.
Dill and Parsley are two plants the Swallowtail adore.
Texas butterfly gardens have become very popular lately and it’s not hard to understand why.
There are so many beautiful butterflies in the Austin, Texas area. For example a few that we see most frequently: the Monarch, the Sulpur, Swallowtail Butterfly (both black and yellow), Red Admiral and Skippers.
Have you seen the Queen butterfly and the Gulf Fritillary? Sometimes people confuse them with the Monarch. The Monarch has thicker black lines which help to distinguish it from the Queen and Fritillary. All of course are are beautiful.
The Gray Hairstreak are tiny and so fast! The Common Buckeye is interesting- it appears to have eyes on it’s wings! The Question Mark Butterfly is another unique one.
Above all, we are so lucky that we attract so many varieties of butterflies. It’s wonderful!
Looking to attract bees and hummingbirds?
Bees are easy, that is to say they seem to be attracted to most all of the flowers that the butterflies like. On our Instagram page we have several videos and photos of pollinators and flowers for example one of a bee on the Mystic Spires. Several customers that are gardeners plant the Mystic Spires to attract the bees to their garden to pollinate their veggies.
The hummingbirds love the Salvia blooms. Hummingbirds are not too picky about what type of Salvia it is, they seem to like them all. Great thing about Salvias, is there are so many to choose between; for instance the greggii, the Mystic Spires, the Mexican Bush Sage, and of course the Salvia ‘Amistad’.
Fall Aster and Checkered White Butterfly
Here at Vivero Growers Nursery, we grow several Texas native plants to attract the butterflies, bees and hummingbirds.
The Gregg’s mistflower, the Salvia coccinea, and the Salvia greggii are probably the top three plants that all three like. There are also seasonally blooming Texas native favorites like the Fall Aster.
If you are creating a butterfly garden or just trying to add more butterfly plants to attract more pollinators to your yard, stop in and ask us to show you our favorites. Chances are you will see the butterflies bees and hummingbirds flying around and will see for yourself what they like!
