How to attract monarch butterflies to your garden

Monarch nectaring on Calliandra Californica
(Red Fairy Duster)

Here are some guidelines on how to establish a successful "monarch butterfly garden". All gained from my own experience here in Southern California.

1. Become pesticide free
   Spraying pesticides for insects in your garden will harm or kill monarch butterflies in all their stages: butterflies, eggs, insects, and chrysalises. Not only that, pollinators of all kinds are harmed by pesticides, including bees and other butterflies. We all need to change our attitudes about having completely pest-free gardens. And I found that once I stopped using pesticides several years ago, I slowly but surely ended up with more birds, ladybugs, and mantises in my garden which naturally contained the number of “pests” in my garden. Song sparrows and vireos do morning rounds of many of the plants in my garden looking for “pests” such as other caterpillars! Consider them Mother Nature’s bug-killers.
2. Grow milkweed
   Monarchs will lay their eggs on milkweed of all varieties, but on nothing else. And monarch caterpillars will eat nothing else. There are well over 100 varieties of milkweed native to the United States alone, and many more from around the world. (Go to http://plants.usda.gov
    and search on the scientific name for milkweed which is “asclepias” to see). Try and grow milkweed that is native to your state and locale. You may have to do so by finding a source for seed as I know from experience in Southern California that native varieties of milkweed plants are not typically sold at local nurseries. The hot favorite is “Neotropical milkweed” (Asclepias curassavica) which is native to Mexico and Central America.
3. Plant nectar plants
   Monarch butterflies will feed off the nectar of milkweed plants, but they also feed from many other nectar plants. Nectar plants attractive to monarch butterflies will attract them to your yard even if you don't have milkweed plants. Yes, even butterflies have to eat! You should plant a variety of nectar plants to attract them. Two plants that I have found particularly attractive to monarch butterflies (as well as to bees and hummingbirds) are “Mexican sunflower” (Tithonia rotundifolia) and “tall verbena” (Verbena bonariensis).
4. Sunshine
   Most milkweed and nectar plants do best with a minimum of 6 hours per day of direct sun, and not only that, monarch butterflies thrive on sunshine.  So don't plan on establishing your butterfly garden on the north side of your house or a wall. I actually had to cut back and remove some trees in my garden to get enough shade into my yard.
5. Sit back and enjoy