“Butterfly House” Exhibit 2020: Next round of seeds

There is so much work to be done for this exhibit. Despite learning what I could from previous years, there is still a lot of time consuming work that is done behind the scenes that I was unaware of:

• We have to have regular maintenance done on the physical facilities.
  • Irrigation needs tested
  • Mulch needs to be laid
  • New netting needs to go up
• There are multiple crops of larvae food that needs to be planted.
• Butterfly friendly flower pots need to be planted.
• We need to start planting the permanent plants, also. We have the following that will become permanent fixtures
  • Northern Spicebush
  • Ruby Spice Spicebush
  • Joe-Pye Weed
  • Coreopsis
  • Blueberry bushes 
• Then everything needs to be taken into the exhibit and nicely arranged.
• And OF COURSE the butterflies need to be ordered.

The good news is that I’ve got another crop started. This time I also included some carrots because some species of swallowtails love them. Meanwhile, the other crops are growing nicely and we’ve found some volunteer annual milkweed that has sprouted from seeds from last year. These will grow in nicely and create a very lush area for our larvae and butterflies to feed.

Also, those snapdragons that needed trimmed, got a lovely haircut from my co-worker, Paula McCarthy. She also planted several of them into window boxes, for the exhibit. As they re-grow and re-bloom they will make our common buckeye butterflies and larvae quite happy.

-Shonna Seymour
Guest Experience Manager & 2020 Butterfly House Organizer

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