In April 2019, the school council asked Berit Erickson to help creat a butterfly garden at her son’s elementary school, Churchill Alternative School. Each spring, it was enthusiastically planted, but struggled on its own after the student gardeners left for the summer. A low-maintenance, mostly-native perennial garden would be a perfect replacement.
According to Berit, “My first task was to come up with a list of suitable butterfly plants for this sunny, dry location. We needed two kinds: nectar-rich flowers to feed adult butterflies and host plants to feed their caterpillars.” See her blog post:
Down to the nitty gritty: creating the Churchill Alternative School butterfly garden