Hastings Library Butterfly Garden

A habitat designed to encourage Butterflies common to Pasadena

 Red Admiral/Marine Blues/Common Buckeye/Mourning Cloak/Common Hairstreaks/ Gulf Fritillary/Painted Lady/West Cost Lady/Monarch/Fiery Skipper/           Funereal Duskywing Skipper/Mournful Duskywing Skipper/Umber Skipper/      Cloudless Sulphur/Western Tiger Swallowtail/Giant Swallowtail/Pale Swallowtail

Our primary goal is to manage a garden to encourage butterflies.  To do this we have plants for nectar sources to sustain the adults and specific plants to nourish caterpillars.  In addition to the goal of creating a butterfly garden; careful consideration has been given to the plant selections favoring native and drought tolerant varieties.   The exceptions are due to the plant specific requirement of the particular caterpillar we hope to nurture.   All of the City of Pasadena ’s watering restrictions will be maintained in this garden. 

  Lunch for Butterflies:

Butterflies need nourishment to have energy for flight as the entire growth of butterflies takes place in the caterpillar stage. Most butterflies visit a wide variety of plants in search for nectar.  In general, red, orange, yellow, lavender and lilac seem to be the blossom colors that butterflies prefer.  The following plants are found on many favorite lists for butterfly gardens and can be found on the grounds at the Hastings Branch Library.  (some are also host plants)

Lantana

Buddleia (Black Knight & Harlequin)

Plumbago (Plumbago auriculata)

Wild Buckwheat (Eriogonum species)

Yarrow (Achillea)

Verbena – (rigida & bonarieasis)

 Bush Lupine (lupinus excubitus)

Coyote Mint (monardell villosa)

Beard Tounge (penstemon spectabilis)

California Sage

Heliotropium Alice des Halles

Abelia grandifolia

Host Plants for Caterpillars

All the growth in the life cycle of Butterflies takes place in the larval stage.  Caterpillars are eating machines ingesting huge amounts of food necessary to build and maintain tissues needed later in life by the adultSome species feed off many different plants while some confine their feeding to just one kind of a plant.  This food plant specificity of caterpillars helps explain why we see so few butterflies today.  Habitat destruction and the elimination of the plants the larva or caterpillars need to survive is the major cause for the disappearance or decrease of Butterflies in a given area. We are excited to announce the following host plants are either on the grounds of the Library or in nearby parkways or foothills. Some of the butterflies have additional host plants not listed here but, as an example, the Monarch only lays eggs on milkweed which is the only plant the Monarch caterpillar will eat.

 Fiery Skipper

• Tuffed Hair Grass (Mulenbergia rigens) 

 Painted Lady & West Coast Lady

• Mallow  / Malva parriflora

 Mourning Cloak

• Elm
• Silk Floss tree

Anise Swallowtail

• Anise or Fennel

Monarch

• Milkweed – Asclepias (curassavica and fascicularis)

 Common Hairstreaks & Cloudless Sulphur

• Senna armata (Buttercream)

 Funereal Duskywing Skipper

• Deerweed – lotus scoparius

 Common Buckeye

• Snapdragons,
• Monkey flower

 Western Tiger Swallowtail

• Sycamore

 Pale Swallowtail 

• Ceanothus Joyce Coulter & Concha

 Gulf Fritillary

• Passion  Vine (passiflora caerulea or alatocaerulea)

 Cabbage Whites

• Nasturtium

 Marine Blue

• Plumbago a ‘Imperial Blue’