Do you want to attract butterflies?

Fay Terry, ZINNIAS AND QUEEN BUTTERFLY, 5 x 7 " oil on museum quality panel, ©2012

This painting is available at ONE ELEVEN MAIN in Aberdeen, NC

One of my favorite flowers, which is easy to grow from seed, attracts large numbers of butterflies and blooms all summer long.  Zinnias come in many bright colors and tolerate heat well. 

Butterflies need places to lay eggs, food plants for their larvae(caterpillars), places to form chrysalides, and nectar sources for adult butterflies. Zinnias are one of the best butterfly nectar flowers and are a real taste treat for the butterflies.

I want to thank my friend, Goran Wibran, for giving me a copy of his photo to paint this from!

Tulip Tree Flowers

Tulip Tree Flowers

Bill and I were walking the trail around the reservoir yesterday

and lots of these beautiful flowers had fallen from the Tulip Poplars. I brought a few

home so I could paint them.  Their fragrance is very sweet, a little like a magnolia, and come

to find out-the tree is not really a poplar at all.  It's a member of the magnolia family.

They attract all kinds of birds, and the squirrels like them too. Hummingbirds also love the nectar from these flowers.  I'm just glad they were on the ground--I woulda hated to ask Bill to climb

that 30 foot tree.

6 x6 in. oil painting