By Dorothy Hoard
September 2010
The PEEC butterfly garden truly was a joint venture, with many people venturing forth to help. We owe the impetus for the garden to the children in PEEC's Spring 2010 Kinnickinnick Club. In addition to the basic idea, they helped plan the layout, helped spread the rather unpleasant compost, chose the plants, pulled invasive grasses, and helped to plant. The participation of former K Kids Jonathon Schueler and Melanie Boncella was a tremendous asset in guiding the younger children (and deserve a BIG thank you for getting their busy parents involved). As the work proceeded, Melanie noted that the place needed a little path around the perimeter, which quickly became a valuable asset.
The plan calls for two gardens. Butterflies can only sip liquids from specialized flowers. Best for them are plants with that produce many small flowers with short tubes leading to nectar sacs. Therefore, our first plot is a nectar garden with lots of nectiferous plants. Most butterfly caterpillars can only digest the leaves of one or a few specific host plants. Therefore, our second plot is a host garden, instantly recognizable because it most closely resembles a weed patch.
Next came Michelle Altherr, who always maintains an interest in K Club. Michelle applied for and obtained a grant from Keep New Mexico Beautiful. Understandably, KNMB needs to know how their money is spent, so managing the grant became somewhat of a nightmare. Michelle had to pry invoices out of the rest of us while we were rushing around spending the money. Some items were still on order when KNMB's deadline came so the vendors wrote us invoices prior to delivery.
The proposed garden area was infested with smooth brome, an invasive grass, so little parties came and helped dig up the rhizomes by shovel and hand. Rototilling would just spread the pest around.
Next came Sylvan Argo who brought her Wednesday Y kids to help prepare the ground. The children worked so hard and did a good job pulling the invasive grass and hauling compost. Chick Keller soon rushed in and rototilled while in the midst of a stressfully busy time putting the drywall on the ceiling at PEEC.
Next came Dave Fox, who gave us a discount on plants from his Pajarito Greenhouse. The K Kids went down to Pajarito Acres, read the labels, and picked out plants; we bought 10 each to the limit of the KNMB funding. However, some of the grant specified shrubs; Dave gave us a list from which we chose several, but it developed that his supplier was sold out. Michelle had discovered that trying to get KNMB to agree to modify the grant was traumatic both for KNMB and for her, so Sir Knight Dave doggedly pursued getting the shrubs we requested. I'm sure he lost sleep (and probably money) on the transactions. Everyone helped plant the Fox flowers.
Next came the Scheulers: Tina, Bill, and ex-K Kid Jonathan, who brought plants up from the greenhouse and delivered two huge loads of compost from the county landfill. Tina planted and weeded and placed mulch around plants that needed it badly; Bill and Jonathan dug big holes for the shrubs and got water from the cistern flowing into the delivery hoses, all on a beautiful Saturday when they would have preferred to be elsewhere. Tina ordered fabric and stakes for the gravel path from LA Home Improvement, Simultaneously, Linda and Melanie Boncella thought some plants from their garden would be good for butterflies so they tucked them in the PEEC garden here and there, pulling weeds as they went.
Next came Yvonne Keller and Selvi Viswanathan, (who really have been around all along) who watered every day during the dry spell and as needed when the rains came. Now too came Jennifer Macke, who personally took her truck to Santa Fe for a load of pecan hull mulch. She also called and called, and called again for the gravel man to deliver the Santa Fe tan gravel; he gave us the invoice way back when Michelle need it for the grant, and Jennifer kept pointing out that if he delivered the gravel, we would actually pay him the money. In the end, things worked rather well in minimizing occupation of the parking lot: about the time the compost got spread, the mulch arrived; about the time the mulch was spread, the gravel arrived. Jennifer also got two very nice benches from the local web swap site.
The day finally came when all the piles were gone from the parking lot. The county compost has all been spread judiciously in various places; the pecan mulch is all in place, including Natali's waterwise garden by the front door; the gravel has been spread on the small paths and, courtesy of St. Evan and saintess-in-training Diane (reluctantly, I think) on the bird feeding area. It looks very nice. Selvi and I made a basking area and two puddling areas–-the latter rather inadvertently. After Bill and Jonathan got water flowing from the cistern into the tubing, we discovered that the tubing either had or later developed two leaks. So we directed the leaks to two sandy areas we made and let them puddle, with runoff into the drainage ditch, which has become a wetland from all the rain.
For butterfly plants, the kids chose beebalm, coneflowers, and globe thistle. Selvi recommended Jupiter's beard, golden basket alyssum, and silverberry. I specified butterfly bushes, a native of China, but the best insect attractor ever devised. Linda Boncella brought Shasta daisies, pineleaf pentstemon and yarrow, which have put out new shoots. Selvi brought violets, gaillardias, goldenrod plants and a rue plant that hosted black swallowtails caterpillars in her own garden. It was rather late for transplanting, but most are doing well, thanks to the rain and Selvi's green thumbs and fingers. Some of the beebalm plants developed mildew so I had to pull them. As far as I can tell, all the plants survived, even with the squirrels treating the young coneflowers like lettuce by eating the leaves down to the crown. We owe this excellent survival rate to Selvi and Yvonne's faithfully watering. After he closed his Pajarito Greenhouse for the season, Dave Fox donated a number of Mexican hat plants to PEEC. We planted them in the nectar garden along Melanie's path and call it Dave's row. I never thought of Mexican hat as good nectar flowers so was quite surprised to see a Milbert's tortoiseshell and dainty sulphurs feed at the blossoms!
Michelle had ordered some very nice name stakes for the plants and some plaques explaining butterfly behaviors. Charlie Starrett made handsome wooden posts for the plaques and we put them appropriately around the garden. They make the place look professional! (Charlie had helped the Scheulers unload the compost from their trailer—high on the list of REALLY unpleasant tasks — but in a very gentlemanly British gesture, he said he had a sitting job and was glad to get the exercise.) Tina brought a nice sign that says "Butterfly Garden." Yvonne always finds ways to make things nicer; she bought wooden screens to disguise the fencing around the utility meters.
Best of all, we've had customers, even though this has not been a good butterfly year at Los Alamos' altitude. We've seen painted ladies and dainty sulphurs. Other sulphurs and blues flit around so fast that I haven't been able to identify them yet. We had a monarch for about a week, far from his migration corridor but welcome here. We had a Milbert's tortoiseshell that I associate with the Camp May area and was surprised to see at this low altitude. A sleepy orange stopped by, not commonly seen in our area. With these successes, I sent away for certification as an official Butterfly Garden from the North American Butterfly Association, and Diane put up the sign they sent.
It's been a hectic summer, but the garden is in place. We all do some weeding as we come and go at PEEC, but otherwise, it should be complete as planned. We would like a wooden walkway and viewing platform. That is a separate project for which my personal expertise level is a rather large negative number.
The K Kids drifted off to their summer activities and with the new school year, they graduated to higher grades beyond the K age range. All this time, we've been calling it the PEEC butterfly garden, but maybe is should be named the Kinnickinnick Club Butterfly Garden. It would be a nice legacy.
Return to PEEC website Articles by Local Authors.