I just found out the Monarch Butterfly is on the Top 10 Most Threatened Species of 2010 list, because of the use of chemical pesticides, and many of their habitats are in jeopardy.

I love watching the Monarch Butterflies in my garden during late summer, so I always plant a few plants just for them, and any other butterflies I can attract to my backyard garden. Since I’ve been fairly successful at attracting them, I thought I’d share a few plants you might want to add to your garden this summer to attract a few butterflies of your own.

Plants to create a butterfly habitat in your backyard:

• Milkweed is the most important plant for the Monarch Butterfly, they lay their eggs on the milkweed plant, and it’s the only plant their larvae will eat. Pesticides, and ditch mowing have cut back the supply of mikweed considerably. If you have a place to let it grow in your backyard plant a few seeds, and watch the butterflies come.
• Thistle is another butterfly favorite.
• Butterfly bush
• Bee balm
• Russian sage
• Butterfly weed
• Yarrow
• Shasta daisies

Most of these are easy to grow perennials, once you plant them they’ll keep coming back year after year to feed your butterfly population. Just make sure you don’t use any chemical pesticides that might harm your butterfly friends.

This summer I’ve had quite a few beautiful and beneficial bugs in my garden. I captured some photos so I thought I’d share some of them with you today.

My favorite creatures are the butterflies that come to visit every summer. I try to plant my garden with them in mind, so I’m always excited when they take me up on my offer to visit.

This butterfly was trying to hold on to a butterfly bush, while the wind was whipping around him.

Another one of my favorite garden visitors is the praying mantis. I usually see several during the summer, but this is the first and only one I’ve spotted this summer in my garden. He was hanging out on the rose bush, hopefully picking off those aphids.

Finally, there have been plenty of worker bees spreading the pollen from plant to plant in my garden. I know we definitely don’t appreciate them enough for all they do.

I love to catch them in the act, so I probably have 20 plus bee photos, but I’ll just torture you with two of them… for now.