Show #16/2803
Four Unique Gardens, Four Interesting Gardeners
Creating A Butterfly Garden
Joe and Pat next visit an area outside Pat's fenced-in backyard. This is a completely different garden, a community garden. Pat spearheaded the effort that made it possible. As it happened a few residents were standing around and happened to notice there was a beautiful view of the mountain but the near view was of the parking lot and not very pleasant. A group got together and Pat was appointed to make a garden. She thought, a butterfly garden, that has pretty flowers and quite easy. It turned out to be a bit more complicated because butterflies need more than flowers for nectar, they also need plants for the caterpillars and the chrysalis. In time and as a community they built this butterfly garden together, with contributions by people either in the form of planting things, giving money or donating plants, For the Monarch butterfly they have Milkweed, Alfalfa and Parsley, plants not found in a normal garden. They now have butterflies which have grown from caterpillars and chrysalis. It was especially fun when inaugurating the garden, to have people in wheelchairs, for example, come to the party where the neighbors were actually able to hold butterflies up allowing others to enjoy them. The people in wheelchairs enjoyed the time and were especially pleased when the butterflies didn't fly away. It was very moving and enjoyed by a lot of people.
