Students transfixed by ladybugs.

Butterfly or Insectary Gardens

In EarthWorks’ butterfly gardens, children can learn about the intricate relationships between plants and insects firsthand in a surprisingly small space. One doesn’t need a large area to create a wonderful butterfly garden, just some carefully selected plants to provide nursery food for caterpillars and nectar for adult butterflies. EarthWorks’ butterfly gardens have a broader focus and could be considered “insectary gardens.” This type of garden follows the same principles as a butterfly garden, but the range of desired insect species is expanded to include other insects including other pollinators, predators and pest parasites. The process for plant selection is the same, and requires simple research into the plants that are attractive to lacewings, ladybugs, big-eyed bugs and other beneficial insects. For more information on beneficial insects visit the Urban Orchards Horticultural Training Manual.

EarthWorks began planting insectary gardens as a way to control orchard pests through natural processes. For example, when plants such as yarrow are present, ladybugs will be inclined to stay in the orchard, as yarrow is a food source that supplements the ladybug’s diet of aphids. Without the appropriate food plants, the ladybugs are apt to travel elsewhere leaving the aphid population unchecked. In insectary gardens children can learn about interactions between plants and insects, witness pollination first-hand, and discover that all earth’s creatures are important, not just the flashy and exceptional creatures like butterflies. The insectary gardens can attract a wide variety of insect life during seasons when butterflies are not abundant. In Boston, this has been especially important in recent years when spraying for West Nile Virus has greatly reduced the number of butterflies visiting our gardens.

The fall is perhaps the most impressive time in the insectary garden. The summer’s growing season has left a wash of pink, purple, orange, yellow and blue flowers in its wake. These blossoms are teaming with life, and the first lessons of the fall take full advantage of this.

Before any lessons, the children get instructions on bee safety. The students learn the behavior that will protect them from bee stings, and chant: “See a bee, be like a tree.” After learning what motivates a bee to sting there are few incidents with bees.

After bee safety, the children begin studying pollination, and through games and observation begin to understand this abstract and complicated topic. Children search for pollinating insects, and are captivated as they watch bees move from flower to flower. Observant students can see the pollen on the insects, notice as the bee inserts its mouthparts into the flower, and watch it move on to another flower. With review and repeated chances for observation, the children quickly begin to grasp this complicated topic.

3rd graders proudly displaying the seeds they collected.

Following pollination, the children explore the result of pollination -- seeds. Deadheading the garden flowers is an activity that encourages the plants to put out more blooms, and shows the children the magic of pollination. When the children break open the dead flowers, they find the seeds hidden inside. Nothing communicates quite as dramatically as this activity that the reason a plant flowers, produces nectar and pollen, displays bright colors and produces fragrant odors is to entice insects to aid in pollination, and enable it to reproduce. Flowers suddenly have a whole new meaning, and many children are awed by the intricate relationship between pollinator and plant. The children harvest the seeds inside the “deadheads” to be planted in the spring. Many children could spend hours collecting, comparing and sorting seeds. Next season’s flowers will have more meaning when, come spring, the children plant the seeds they harvested themselves in the fall.

Insect gardens also promote community service and produce feelings of pride in the children. As one child, planting seeds in the spring, remarked, “When people see the flowers, they will know this is a great place to go to school.” In landscapes largely dominated by concrete and asphalt, the power of the gardens cannot be underestimated.

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