Planting day in the new SCBG Butterfly Garden

Who-hoo! How fabulous to have a new site, many great new plants, and more to come, with such a nice group of folks to help plant and learn about butterfly gardening.

Rosie, Linda, Jackie, and Jeff planting

Here are more images from this morning.

Gathering together

Getting ready (the Turners and Kathy Bridges, an SCBG horticulturist)

Planting with Carolyn Turner, Donna Crader, Linda Alston-Binic, and Rosie Bayer

Our butterfly gardening friends, John and Carolyn Turner, and I are SO excited with the new site for the Butterfly Garden. John Bodiford and Kathy Bridges (our horticultural staff colleagues) along with James Arnold (on grader duty for this project - thanks, James!) were totally supportive, and I know I'm just grateful and pleased.

Our Lake and Hills Garden Club friends, who underwrote our initial butterfly garden planting (thanks so very much), turned out too, represented by club president Rosie Bayer and butterfly-garden liaison Linda Alston-Binic.

We had a monarch-tagging as a dedication. Photos to come.

A new butterfly garden

It's totally thrilling to get ready to plant our new Butterfly Garden, in a sheltered, but sunny area adjacent to (and really part of) the SCBG Children's Garden.

Our first Butterfly Garden site was on a windy hill, and designed by a gifted student, but she wasn't steeped in butterfly biology, and the plantings basically consisted of butterfly bushes, and a few other nectar plants.

A local garden club (Lake and Hills Garden Club) has been a devoted sponsor for many years of our original Butterfly Garden site, and we're delighted that they're participating in the new location as well.

Butterfly enthusiasts John and Carolyn Turner, along with me, have selected a large array of nectar and caterpillar host plants, at least in our first pass.

It looks like it will become a great garden. We've still got lots of plants to add, but our planting tomorrow will provide the basis for a lovely array of nectar-producing plants as well as host plants for most of our common butterflies.