Butterfly Pavilion

Written by Amy Yarger, Butterfly Pavilion Horticulture Director One of my favorite harbingers of spring is the golden currant bush (Ribes aureum). In April and May, this native shrub blooms with clove-scented golden flowers that attract many pollinators. One of the pollinators it feeds is our Hunt’s bumble bee (Bombus huntii), or as I like […]

Written by Amy Yarger, Butterfly Pavilion Horticulture Director There are certain garden stories that I hear so often, I can recite them from memory. This year, I predict that at least one person will tell me about the monarch butterfly that visits their garden every day at the same time. I will nod with interest

Written by Amy Yarger, Butterfly Pavilion Horticulture Director If I were to come up to you and say, “I’m planting a garden that attracts flies!”, what would you do? Would you back away slowly from me? Envision a trash dump? Flies are usually perceived as dirty, annoying insects, but there are over 16,000 species of

Written by Amy Yarger, Butterfly Pavilion Horticulture Director In popular culture, the universal calling card for bees is bold black and yellow stripes. We associate this striking color combination with bees for a reason – once you get stung, you never forget! Seeing yellow next to black triggers those painful memories and reminds us to

Written by Amy Yarger, Butterfly Pavilion Horticulture Director Most of us have seen the black-and-white footage of teenage fans screaming for the Beatles, but there are very few people who are fans of U beetles, even though these insects are so important to our ecosystems. What would it take for people to call themselves “Beetles

By Amy Yarger, Butterfly Pavilion Horticulture Director From early spring until frost, little white butterflies are probably the most common ones we see in our gardens and parks. These butterflies, members of the Pieridae or sulfur family, emerge from winter hibernation in their chrysalids to flutter over weedy spaces, vegetable patches, and along drainages and