Clintonville Park and Rec seeks donations
By Bert Lehman
The city of Clintonville plans to add a butterfly garden to Seven Maples Nature Area.
Parks and Recreation Director Justin Mc Auly told the Clintonville Parks and Rec Committee at its Jan. 30 meeting what his plan is for the butterfly garden.
Mc Auly said the city’s agreement with the Simpson family, who donated the property to Clintonville, is to plant native plants.
To honor that agreement the city would have to plant native nector and host plants for butterflies that congregate in this area during the warmer months.
He added that his research found that there are about 17,500 species of butterflies in the world. About 750 of those are in the United States.
The layout of the butterfly garden is still to be determined, but Mc Auly provided the committee with a sample layout, which included where different plant species to attract butterflies would be located. This included the color of the different plant species, as well as how tall the plants would grow.
“I was kind of envisioning something that had some kind of barrier around it, whether its washed stone or plastic trim or landscaping block,” Mc Auly said.
Having permanent benches added to the area is also a possibility. This would allow visitors to the area to sit and watch the butterflies.
Projected costs
Mc Auly said the biggest expense to creating the butterfly garden would be purchasing the plants. He estimated it would cost slightly more than $1,300 to purchase the plants.
“The goal would be to take this all out of our landscaping account,” Mc Auly said. “If we were able to secure any type of donations that would be great.”
A rough estimate for the entire cost to create a butterfly garden would be $2,700.
Mc Auly told the committee that it would also be a goal to certify the butterfly garden.
Committee member Chuck Manske said he’d like to see the butterfly garden layout allow for visitors to be able to get up close to the plants and butterflies.
“It doesn’t have to be much of a path, just some sort of walkway so you can walk up to a particular plant and look at the fine details of it. And maybe get closer or get a photograph of a butterfly,” Manske said.
Committee Chairman Steve Kettenhoven agreed because the butterfly garden could be a great place for photographers who want to get closeup photos of butterflies.
Manske also recommended signs be used in the butterfly garden to help identify the different plants in the garden.