A colourful wildflower mix to draw butterflies to your garden!

A butterfly doesn't forage like a bee. A bee can hover and hang on almost anywhere; a butterfly has to land and stay stable while it unrolls its proboscis. So it needs flowers that offer a landing strip: broad flat heads, or clusters of small flowers grouped into a platform. That's precisely what the black-eyed Susans, coneflowers, coreopsis and daisies that dominate this mix are. Narrow, nodding flowers, however beautiful, almost never receive butterflies.

Annuals: Baby's Breath, Cornflower, Pot Marigold, Chrysanthemum, Cosmos, Flanders Poppy, Plains Coreopsis, Scarlet Flax and Sweet Alyssum 'Carpet of Snow'.

Biennial: Wallflower.

Perennials: Black-eyed Susan, Bladder Campion, Evening Primrose, Lance-leaved Coreopsis, Upright Coneflower, Purple Coneflower, Rocky Mountain Penstemon, Russell Lupine, Shasta Daisy and Soapwort.

Two things to add so it really works. First, a flat stone in the sun: butterflies can't fly until their wing muscles reach the right temperature, and they spend a good part of the morning wings open on a warm surface. Second, a corner sheltered from wind, because they avoid exposed areas. And if you're aiming for monarchs in particular, know that this mix feeds them but doesn't hatch them: their caterpillars eat only milkweed, which is in our bee and pollinator mix.

Grower's tip: clear down to bare soil before sowing, otherwise the established grasses smother everything before emergence. Broadcast the seed, then press firmly without covering, with the back of a rake: these seeds need light and good contact with the soil, not to be buried. And don't fertilize — rich soil gives tall grass and few flowers.

• Open-pollinated.
• Sow ~4 g per 3 square metres.
• Prefers full sun or part shade.
• Sow directly outdoors early May to mid-June, or mid-September to late October.
• Add a flat stone in the sun and a corner sheltered from wind.
• Press without covering. Don't fertilize.