Maria del Carmen Orlandis-Habsburgo
It is time to plant the first seeds of a Magical Dream. You can do it! Start by digging a small circle in that ugly lawn and seed it with milkweed! If you already got rid of the lawn and have instead a landscaped & carefree front garden, make a little space for milkweed. Plant before the first frost and then, dream of the Spring.
To choose the type of butterfly garden of your dreams, a carefree or a laborious one, will depend on how much time you have and your passion. I am an elder and the garden is my exercise and it keeps me busy from April to Halloween. I grow massive amounts of flowers and this season I raised and released 300 Monarchs. It brings me and others great joy. On the other hand, today I walked by a new front garden on Emerald St that has been landscaped over the summer and I was delighted. It has being designed to be carefree, with wood chips around the plants. But what is truly enlightened, is that unlike other carefree designs, all they planted were Butterfly plants, including milkweed deployed as an ornamental. The beauty of the milkweed blossom is beyond words and it is said that it is the most fragrant wildflower in Canada.
I enjoyed C. Vennings Gala Herald article on Rain-gardens. Keep water management in mind when dreaming of your Butterfly Garden.
The Great Butterfly Award
Our first award was presented to Brenda Duke for the gardens she has inspired. I asked her when she started planting pollinator gardens and how many she has stewarded.
“We did the first in Birch Avenue Park in 2015 and added over the years – we now have 6 there. Then we did 3 in Powell Park in 2015 as well. We did 3 in Woodlands in 2016 that got mowed down several times but the plants are coming back slowly; the 3 in Woodlands will need to be restored after the encampments. We’ve done 3 alley gardens and added a memorial one in Westmill Alley for the caretaker that passed away. All of our gardens are in Gibson between Birch and Wentworth. We also built one in Powell Park Community Garden when I managed it. So, give or take we’ve started, and restarted a lot. For a while now”
