Nectar Year Round
It is easier to provide butterflies nectar in the spring and summer when many plants are in bloom. Yet, pollinators need nectar in the fall and winter months too. An Atala colony is no exception. Plants that feed these butterflies year-round are wild coffee, scorpion tail, butterfly sage, and Spanish needle.
For every gardener who hates Spanish needle, butterflies and bees love it tenfold! The Spanish needle is a weedy pain, but they bloom in the winter when there aren’t many other plants blooming. This “weed” is a lifeline that keeps the nectar flowing. Find a spot for it in your garden where you can better tolerate its hitchhiking habits. Spanish needle is also a larval host plant for the Dainty Sulphur butterfly. Lastly, it’s free!
The Atala Butterfly Buffet
An Atala all-you-can-eat favorite is the fiddlewood tree. This tree blooms mostly in the spring and the Atalas cannot get enough of it. The competition among each other is set aside to enjoy this tree’s plentiful nectar. Fiddlewood is a wonderful native plant that also bears fruit for the birds and serves as a larval host plant for the fiddlewood leafroller. If you have not noticed by now, the Atala favors little white flowers for their nectar source. I added two other buffet favorites to my garden based on recommendations from other Atala gardeners. The chaya and sweet almond bush are non-native trees that are not invasive in South Florida. Daniel Culbert’s fact sheet with the University of Florida lists several nectar sources favored by the Atala butterfly.
(UF/Fact Sheet ENH117, Florida Coonties and Atala Butterflies, Daniel F. Culbert)
The Journey’s Log
In closing, it’s a good idea to keep a journal, to document each time you reintroduce Atala caterpillars, any plant additions, and other changes that have taken place in your garden. It took me five reintroductions and 16 years of preparation to achieve a year-round Atala colony which I have had since 2019! This fragile niche was made possible by caterpillars gifted to me by Kenneth Neugent, Mary Benton of Bound by Beauty, and Jason Vollmer of the North American Butterfly Association. On behalf of Miami Westwood Lakes’ Atala butterflies, thank you, thank you, thank you!
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