Fancy-colored butterflies are a joy to watch. Why not plan now to make sure butterflies come to see you next spring and also stay around permanently.

Most people think the gardening season is over for the year. It may be for flower and vegetable gardens. But, not for butterfly gardens.

October is an ideal time to plant perennial plants that will attract butterflies next spring.

If you pick the right plants, you can assure that the butterflies not only come but stay. That means your backyard can be their permanent home year after year.

A variety of plants in a butterfly garden

Phillip Stutz is the horticulture programs coordinator at the Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House in Faust Park in west St. Louis County. He's interested in more than just caring for butterflies inside the Butterfly House.

He and his organization teach kids and adults how to make their own homes for butterflies. One way is to show how to make butterfly gardens right in your own yards.

Young Saint Louis.com asked Phillip to explain how you can make your own butterfly garden. (For more detailed information, you can go to the Butterfly House website at www.butterflyhouse.org. Then, you can click on to gardening.)

"The best butterfly gardens are those that have both food plants and host plants," Stutz said. The food plants are those with flowers that have nectar. The host plants are those where butterflies lay eggs for the next generation.

"You want to have a garden that keeps butterflies through their entire lifecycle," he said.

Owl butterfly

He reminds everyone the lifecycle of a butterfly is measured in weeks. Several generations of a butterfly will come and go in a single summer.

Stutz said the fall season is a good time to start a garden that has perennial plants. Those are the ones that keep coming back to life year after year. (Annual plants are those that require replanting of new seeds every year.)

Starting a butterfly garden doesn't have to be a big job, he said. You can start with just a few plants, either planted in the ground or in garden containers. Also, there isn't a lot of weeding and other care needed for these gardens.

But, Stutz said, "You want to make sure you use plants with colorful flowers. The butterflies are attracted to color."

He suggests using clumps of plants close together. "That means you'll have clumps of the same type of flowers with the same color. That attracts more attention," he said.

Also, butterflies are attracted to flowering plants that have a strong odor, Stutz said.

Orange Tiger butterfly

Stutz said one of his favorite plants for butterflys are types of milkweed. "They not only have the flowers for food, but they are also host plants for butterfly larva," he said.

But, he recommends that you use a number of different flowering plants. The more variety of nectar sources, the more likely you'll attract a variety of butterflies. (Visit the Butterfly House's website for both common and scientific names of appropriate flowering plants.)

One of the most popular butterflies in the metro area is the Monarch butterfly. This specie likes milkweed plants both as a food source and as a host plant.

Other popular host plants, beside milkweed, are willow, black cherry, pawpaw, spicebush, hop tree, senna and fennel. .

Here are some of the flowering plants that provide good food supplies for butterflies: azalea, black-eyed susan, butterfly bush and weed, ironweed, French marigold, New England aster, purple coneflower, swamp milkweed, vervain and zinnia.

You can get help in getting the right plants by checking with your nearest home and garden store. At this time of the year, be sure you tell the clerk you're interested in perennial plants and seeds. (You'll plant the annuals next spring.)

Stutz offered a couple more tips in starting your perennial garden this fall:

• Don't use chemical pesticides. These kill butterflies, caterpillars and other useful insects.
  
  
• There are natural plants which repel pests. Some of these are marigolds, petunias, mint and other plants. Also, encourage ladybugs and dragonflies to live and dine in your garden. They also keep down pests.

When Stutz was in college, he earned a master's degree in botany at the University of Texas. His specialty was pollination biology. Butterflies and bees are two insects which are extremely important in helping other plants mature.

While they hunt for food, pollen from those same plants sticks to them and comes off when they stop off at the next plant to get more food.