www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Hello. Does anyone have any idea if common Tansy is any good for nectaring butterflies - or indeed any other wildlife. I'm tackling an out of control border at the moment and starting hacking at it and muttering that I'll dig it out, and then wondered if it's of any use?
Thanks for any advice.

Hello Deborah,
At Dungeness (Kent ) there is a fair clump of Tansey ,close to the old lighthouse ,and it does seem to attract butterflies ,I,ve watched Common Blue ,Brown Args ,and Small Coppers all nectaring from the plants, i,ve posted a couple of shots of Common Blues on Tansey . Regards Allan.W.

Excellent! Thanks Allan. A reason to keep it (and save myself some work in the process ) I'll just have to try and keep it well staked next year and watch out for any interest.

Also there's this little critter:

https://www.buglife.org.uk/bugs-and-hab ... nsy-beetle

Very rare and restricted to just 2 sites in the UK although I'm not sure of it's european status.

We kept a good patch of tansy in our previous garden. It was an excellent hoverfly nectar plant; I seem to remember the Gatekeepers using it as well (they certainly like other, similar, yellow flowers - ragwort and fleabane).

Moths - there is a Tansy Plume https://ukmoths.org.uk/species/gillmeria-ochrodactyla, and a number of the tiny, pretty Dichrorampha species use it as their foodplant as well.

Ok. Ok. I'm keeping the Tansy! In fact I'm glad it's there now. I got given it originally at a plant exchange - where, generally, you offload rampant things onto poor unsuspecting victims. It was when I first moved in and had an empty field to fill. Now I've a full field, so am trying to prioritise, but want to keep anything useful for butterflies

Given how much Small Coppers seem to covet fleabane, I'd be surprised if they weren't strongly attracted to tansy as well!

Given a choice, they prefer ragwort; we had a self-seeded ragwort amongst the fleabane in the garden this year, and the Small Coppers and Gatekeepers went for that. They also enjoy marjoram and small scabious, but not to quite the extent of the yellow flowers.