Butterfly Garden at .......

The Butterfly Garden is located near the tall grass prairie, the former site of the prairie forbs garden. The objective is to incorporate plants that attract butterflies commonly found in the Midwest, such as the Monarch. Butterflies need plants that provide food for the caterpillars as well as plants that provide nectar for the mature butterflies. Some of the plants to be included in the garden are the butterfly bush, milk weed, hollyhock, phlox, coneflowers, zinnias and asters to name a few. To view photographs of the garden and select plantings, click HERE. Volunteers Marion Johnson and Kathy Andersen have prepared the butterfly garden for the 2008 season. The garden is being expanded. According to Kathy Andersen "This year the new garden will be primarily a 'source for nectar' garden but, new milkweeds will provide many breeding plants which we need. Marion and I have a plan to keep the common milkweed in the original garden to pace itself throughout the season better to keep all our resources going more effectively. We'll hope our plan works! My goal is self sufficiency in the rearing and feeding butterflies at the Arb and, of course, beauty for the visitors. I don't know if we can ever be completely self sufficient when we wish to have many emerging butterflies to tag for Butterfly Festival and other events but we can move as much toward that as possible." The Bickelhaupt Arboretum is now an official waystation for Monarch Butterflies as designated by the University of Kansas Entomology Program. The arboretum, one of only four such sites in Iowa and the only public garden so named in the state, is committed to monarch butterfly conservation and helping to assure the continuation of the monarch migration. To learn more about Monarch Waystations and the Monarch Watch program, click HERE. Monarch Watch Home