I am sometimes asked where to find the butterfly-attracting plants mentioned on my website.  Probably the best nurseries in the Washington, D.C. area are Behnke Nurseries. I also had good luck ordering plants from Prairie Nursery in Wisconsin (www.prairienursery.com).

I obtained most of my garden's plants from seed, e.g., Collards, Globe Amaranth, Helliotrope, Mexican Sunflower, Marigolds, Parsley, and Verbena. Home Depot and Hardware City have a good selection of seeds in the spring. I also collected some of the seeds in the fall from the wild, e.g., Common Milkweed.

Other plants arrived without my intervention via the wind or birds, e.g., Heath Aster, Late-flowering Boneset, Small White Aster, and Wingstem. These were fun because they were mysteries at first.

I bought many plants at the Audubon Naturalist Society's native plant sales in Chevy Chase, Maryland (8940 Jones Mill Road), e.g., New England Aster, Butterfly Weed, Blue Cardinal Flower, Purple Coneflower, Joe-Pye Weed, Liatris, and Garden Phlox. These sales are held in early May.