A few years ago we visited the Magic Wings Conservatory & Gardens, a butterfly aviary in South Deerfield, MA. We enjoyed viewing and photographing an array of tropical butterflies. However, the highlight for me was stopping at their nursery on the way out. As I had hoped, they sold many butterfly larval plants. We decided to add to our collection and purchased a hops (humulus lupulus) plant, which attracts the question mark, red admiral and grey hairstreak butterflies.  

To increase the butterfly population in your garden, you need to provide food for the caterpillars. Each species feeds only on specific plants referred to as larval or host plants. Butterflies lay their eggs on these plants and when they hatch, the caterpillars subsequently eat the leaves. For example, the monarch butterfly lays her eggs exclusively on the milkweed plant. We also have a variety of flowering nectar plants for the adult butterflies.

The hops plant is a vine which grows vigorously wrapped around a support, rising up to 25 feet tall. The very first summer we had our hops plant, we attracted the question mark and red admiral butterflies to our backyard.

The question mark butterfly is so named because of the silver/white marking in the shape of a question mark seen when the wings are closed.    

The cone like flower of the hops is used to brew beer so if anyone needs any hops, let me know.