Touring the Winged Gardens

By Lori Rotenberk

This year’s Illinois Audubon Butterfly Garden Tour promises fragrant summer flowers, enthusiastic gardener-hosts — and a future for our region’s butterflies.

The gardeners of the Illinois Audubon Butterfly Garden Tour started planting flowers to attract as many fritillaries, spring azures, and viceroys to their yards as possible. But they didn’t count on attracting so many people.

Held in August, the popular tour of more than 50 gardens stretches across six Illinois counties and attracts more than 1,000 visitors each year. The Illinois Audubon Society started the Butterfly Garden Tour five years ago to highlight the work of people creating gardens specifically for butterflies. In a rapidly developing landscape, these pockets of color are gaining importance as butterfly habitat. The gardens — mostly home sites with owners at the ready to guide visitors — are as diverse as the species they intend to attract.

Last year’s tour led to grand gardens such as that of Dr. Joe Shanahan of Hinsdale. His sweeping 11-acre estate harbors coyote, fox, a crowd of wild and domesticated fowl, and an elaborate pond full of goldfish. The property incorporates hundreds of native plants, including butterfly favorites such as aster, blazing star, native phlox, black-eyed Susan, goldenrod, and coreopsis. The former Nebraska farm boy (and doctor of emergency medicine) is on a mission not only to create a haven for butterflies, but also to purchase local land to protect it from development. “We’ve been here 14 years,” said Shanahan, “and I have plans for more native plants and a bird sanctuary.”

Yet just as beautiful is the small garden of retired schoolteacher Anne Browne, who lives in a compact Park Ridge neighborhood. Browne’s garden was a tour favorite for its simple elegance and ability to transport visitors to a place of peace and serenity. While pines and ferns evoke her beloved North Woods, more local plants also fill her yard, such as coneflower, queen of the prairie, Joe Pye weed, and bloodroot. Painted ladies flutter from mallow to milkweed.

Expect a new stream in Browne’s yard for the upcoming tour as well as a birdbath chocked with sand, rock, and water so the butterflies can puddle. “I am forever changing things,” said Browne. “Then when I sit in the garden or look out my back window I can spend hours watching all I’ve attracted.”

Although the cool spring of 2004 meant a below-average year for butterflies, tour participants reported species such as red admirals, painted ladies, tiger swallowtails, great spangled fritillaries, monarchs, snouts, and orange sulphurs, as well as hummingbird and Sphinx moths. Lucky gardeners have also hosted mourning cloaks, buckeyes, and skippers. Over the years, tour gardeners have recorded as many as 25 different butterfly, skipper, and moth species.

Most of the gardens on the tour feature an array of plants sought by adult butterflies for their nectar. But many gardeners include “host plants,” species that will provide a place for the butterfly to lay eggs and provide food for its caterpillars. Some tour gardeners have created water features and wet sand areas as drinking stations, while others have installed butterfly boxes to provide shelter. Many also raise butterflies indoors with the intent of increasing populations.

Marian and John Thill of Morton Grove have been gardening “for butterflies and birds” for more than a decade. Their back yard is a riot of coneflowers, towering cup plants, Joe Pye weed, and ironweed, but it feels clean and well-kept. The varied plant beds create cozy niches that create the illusion of a much larger lot. The Thills have had more than 20 species of butterfly visitors, which thrive in the wind-sheltered environment, warming themselves on the stones beside their small pond.

Sitting on the crook of a splendid old Austrian pine in his front yard, 71-year-old Bernard Hammer of Winnetka says the post-war Victory Gardens in his neighborhood led to his love of the soil. Natives in Hammer’s garden include milkweed, sunflowers, and monarda, and this year he is growing compass plant. During the tour, Hammer hands out articles about the importance of butterflies and the best local plants. He gives everyone a dried drumstick allium preserved with a shot of hair spray.

“Why garden?” asks Hammer. “Because it’s great to be creative. And it’s even better to teach others what I’ve learned over a lifetime.”

Perhaps that is the most intriguing aspect of the garden tours. The flowers are lovely and the gardens are comforting. The stories that are told, however, leave visitors with hope.

Tour visitor Mike McGuire, 25, is a novice eager to glean knowledge from the experienced gardeners. “We just bought our first house and I want to have a great garden,” McGuire said. Enough curious beginners like McGuire — combined with active stewardship of our preserves for species that need more natural habitats — may hold the next great hope for butterflies. “I never thought I was the type of guy who would dig around in the back yard. Just look at me — I’m a big guy with a shaved head and tattoos! Gardening, though, is great. I can plant something and watch it grow into something beautiful.”

Related Articles:

Create Your Own Butterfly Garden, CW Summer 1999

Unlock Your Yard! Getting Started with Native Plant Gardening, CW Spring 2002

Making Friends with Butterflies, CW Summer 1998

Plant Butterfly Weed (includes garden tips and plant discussion)