There is nothing better on a hot summer day than sitting on your porch, sipping sweet tea, and watching butterflies flutter around in your garden. While I can't promise the nice weather or the tea, I can give you a few tips on how to attract butterflies to your garden and how to keep them coming back year after year.

Feed Them

Butterflies eat nectar from certain flowers and plants. In order to attract them to your garden, you will need to plant a nice variety of their favorites. Butterflies love flowers like daisies that have a central disk. They also love flowers that are tubular in shape. It seems that color is not a major factor, but they tend to like bright colors of reddish-purple and yellow.

To get your garden started, you will need to find a sunny location in your yard that receives at least six to eight hours of sunlight each day. Choose a spot that can be easily viewed from your porch or window because you will want to keep an eye on it later. Your butterfly garden can be as big or as small as you'd like it to be. Of course, the bigger it is, the more butterflies you are likely to attract.

Buddleia

The first plant that you should think of planting in your garden is the buddleia, better known as . . . you guessed it, the butterfly bush. The butterfly bush works like a magnet on the little creatures. They love it. Buddleia is a deciduous shrub, meaning it sheds its leaves annually. They need full sun to flower well and prefer well-drained soil. When planting, make sure they will have plenty of room to spread out as they will grow anywhere from four to six feet tall. In the very early spring, you will need to give them a heavy pruning. Take them down to approximately one or two feet high to promote new growth that will flower profusely. Do not prune them in the fall as that can cause the plant to die over the winter.