The Butterfly Garden

The Butterfly Garden was started as a joint project between T, then pre-teen daughter, and myself. I thought it would be a fun project for the two of us. We both were interested in seeing what kind of butterflies would show up. It has come with benefits; we’ve had marvelous conversations while weeding. While T has moved on to other interests the garden remains and she still will come out every now and then, pick a few weeds and talk. The topics, like butterflies, are varied and most times, as butterflies would, the topics flutter and float away. Some topics occasionally settle, like a butterfly alighting on a rock to sun itself; and becoming a real discussion of importance.

The Butterfly Garden originally was full of little white stone paths and almost everything in it was an annual. It was very pretty and whimsical. I put an old wagon wheel I found in a long forgotten corner of our property in it and scattered garden stepping stones and ornaments wherever I found a spot for them. But as daughters grow and change, so has the butterfly garden.

It's funny how one's priorities change when practicality moves in. It took me one summer to figure out while stone paths were very pretty; they were a royal pain to weed. The stones themselves kept migrating to the garden or worse, to the lawn where driving over them with the lawn mower turned them into flying missiles. I couldn’t use a trowel to loosen the weeds because of the stones. Only took one stone to the forehead to figure that one out. Now, instead of many trailing stone path, I have one down the center. I still have to weed it but I have found that adding a bag of stones every year is finally discouraging the weeds to the point where I’m hoping they’ll give up. I have applied the same philosophy to T, I don’t sweat the clothes she wears or the make up she applies because the grades are good, she’s not rude and does the chores. Like I said, priorities change.

After two summers, I realized I simply didn't have the time to plan, arrange and sow seeds every spring considering the other gardens I had to work on. So I started planting perennials that I heard attracted butterflies. I’ve got lambs’ ear, lavender, asterbies, lovage, and bee balm. The seeds I do plant of plants that are self-seeding and will come back, calendula and cone flowers. The ornaments and stepping-stones are more strewn now than placed. Any flaw I want to cover, I plop a knick-knack on it. Some of the time saved is now spent with T, and while I don’t want to cover her flaws, an occasional weeding of her attitude works wonders.

The Butterfly Garden has changed over the years, but it is still a gentle place, full of quiet beauty and sweet dreams, as is my daughter. And like my daughter, it has grown, becoming more practical and mature but the original charm, likability, and uniqueness have been kept beautifully.


Every now and then, there is an unexpected joy. Like this cosmo growing amoung the Calendulas. A seed from last year that persevered through the winter and grew strong and beautiful. Or T offering to shingle the top part of the chicken coop, conquering her fear of heights because she knew with my vertigo, it would be difficult for me. And so I carefully tend, nurture and occasionally put on a pile of tried and true compost, also known as advice. The gifts and the accomplishment come with the years.