Swallowtail Butterfly Garden in Progress Thanks to Ferndale Garden Club
(Lilly Crossley, July 4, 2023)
Ferndale, MI – After a giant Elm tree in the Ferndale Community Garden was sadly taken down in the fall of last year, the Ferndale Garden Club saw this as an opportunity to build something new. With the loss of the tree, along with another tree being knocked over by a drunk driver two years ago, the garden was in need of a refresh.
The club noticed that a big part of the garden that was once covered in shade by the Elm tree was now exposed to full sun. They saw this as the perfect place to put in a garden for the black swallowtail butterfly.
The swallowtail butterfly is known for its black wings with blue scaling and rows of yellow spots. This butterfly is important to the club because it spends its entire lifecycle in Michigan. The Ferndale Garden Club is working with other clubs under an umbrella called Michigan Garden Clubs, and together they are advocating for the black swallowtail to become the official state butterfly. Although the monarch butterfly has a great significance to Michigan as well, they migrate in the winter, while the swallowtail does not. The swallowtail is capable of overwintering in Michigan gardens and yards, so “it’s a call-out for us to rethink how we garden and tend our yards to provide places for them to overwinter,” Dominic Scappaticci, the president of the club, says.
The butterfly usually hides under pieces of bark, twigs, and leaf litter, so when gardeners dispose of these things after cleaning their gardens in the fall, it causes those butterflies to get thrown away as well. Keeping twigs and leaves in the garden over winter, as well as delaying the spring cleanup until it’s warm enough, gives the butterflies a chance to awaken in the spring. Allowing these butterflies to survive is important not just for their own population, but for the bird population as well. Baby birds are usually fed insects, such as the swallowtail caterpillars, so when gardeners make their yards more sterile and less hospitable for butterflies, “we start to lose out on the bugs and the birds as well,” Dominic explains.
The garden, which is located at the intersection of Livernois and Oakridge in Ferndale, will include lots of host plants for the swallowtail caterpillars to feed on and flowers for the butterflies to get nectar from. While having flowers for the butterflies is important, Dominic believes that it’s even more important to have plants that feed the caterpillars because “you won’t have the butterfly if you don’t have the babies.” Some of these plants include Golden Alexander, which is a native host plant, Dill, Parsley, Fennel, and Common Rue. Zinnia will also be added, which is the official flower of the club.
This project has just begun, so “it probably won’t be done until next year,” Dominic predicts. The club currently does not have any sponsors for this project, and most of their money comes from fundraising. The club is also a 501(c)(3), meaning they are a registered nonprofit. “It would be wonderful if there were any community partners or folks in the area that want to help out,” Dominic says, “especially since we’re at the beginning of this project.
The Ferndale Garden Club first started in 1931, and the Community Garden was built in the mid 1990’s. It was previously a vacant piece of land, and the club turned it into “a place of rest and enjoyment for the community,” Dominic describes. The Club hosts work days the first Saturday of every month, where anyone can come together to help tend to the garden. Along with offering free lectures and workshops for anyone interested in gardening, the club has also been giving a scholarship to one senior student from Ferndale High School every year since 1990. In order to receive the scholarship, the student has to write an essay and be going to school to study something related to ecology, earth science, or biology. The club also gives out Zinnia seeds every year, and they go on field trips or get together to visit other gardens.
Dominic joined the Garden Club 10 years ago after moving back to Ferndale. He saw a flyer at a hardware store for an event hosted by the club, and he decided to check it out. He has been a member ever since. “I love meeting other gardeners, and I love this opportunity to be in person with other gardeners and talk about gardening. Doing good things for our community, such as helping students with the scholarship, is what really hooked me in,” Dominic explains. The garden club is a great way to be face to face with other gardeners and share the joy of gardening.
If someone is interested in joining the Ferndale Garden Club, they can send an email to theferndalegardenclub@gmail.com, or they can attend one of their free community programs. There is one in Harding Park on July 13th, and one at the Ferndale Area District Library on August 3rd. Facebook is another great place to find more information on the club and their upcoming events.
Once the garden is complete, it will be a wonderful place for swallowtail butterflies to live and flourish. The Ferndale Garden Club creating this sanctuary, along with providing more information on how community members should tend their gardens, will allow more of the butterflies to survive the cold winter months and thrive the following spring. As the garden continues to grow in the upcoming years, so will the population of what they hope will become the official Michigan state butterfly – the black swallowtail.
Learn more about Ferndale Garden Club at Facebook.com/theferndalegardenclub
