Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - Aujourd'hui 09:08

A home for butterflies and love

Garden With Wings, the butterfly garden in the northwest corner of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Port of Spain, is thriving and doing its job, attracting several types of butterflies and moths to the area. When Newsday visited the butterfly garden one afternoon, the garden beds were covered in flowering plants and vines which were far from pruned. The garden looked natural and untamed, even though it was obviously kept in check by the relatively clear paths lined by rocks. The area was shaded by several large trees, and small orange, yellow, pink and purple blooms were scattered among the green of the leaves and bushes. And although the sight was welcoming, only a few butterflies were sighted fluttering around. [caption id="attachment_1140443" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Monarch butterflies feed at the butterfly garden at the Botanic Gardens, Queen's Park Savannah, Port of Spain on February 13. - Photo by Faith Ayoung[/caption] But the garden’s co-ordinator, Serina Allison Hearn, excitedly told Newsday it was more successful than she, the Friends of the Botanic Gardens and various volunteers thought it would be when they started the project in November 2021. “When we started, we were using a pickaxe to break the ground, it was so compacted. "Now, if you put your hand in the soil, it’s loose and fabulous. That’s because we’ve been making it, using leaves and grass cuttings to wood chips, to constantly mulch the beds and the path.” She said one concern was that the plants would not survive the dry season without constant watering, but they thrived and she was very pleased they were doing well. She said the reason for the success was approximately 60 ollas in the garden – unglazed clay pots filled with water and buried in soil to water the plants. “In 2024, Garden with Wings was able to survive the dry season into the rainy season and come through to 2025 with an extremely well established garden.” She has seen a lot of monarch, postman, swallowtail and cloudless sulphur butterflies. In addition, she has learned a lot about the ecosystem. She recounted that last year, she saw one leaf with hundreds of butterfly eggs and tiny caterpillars, but over the next two days, more than half of them were gone. Eventually, she noticed tiny ants carrying off the caterpillars. “When I started doing research on the relationship between these plants and animals, I learned the passionflower will send out some kind of smell, some kind of signal to the ants, to tell the ants to come because they are being eaten by the caterpillars. That was amazing!” She said the insects did a lot of hunting in the garden, as expected in nature, so that, statistically, the survival rate of the butterflies was very low. [caption id="attachment_1140446" align="alignnone" width="1024"] A section of the butterfly garden at the Botanic Gardens, Port of Spain. - Photo by Ayanna Kinsale[/caption] Hearn said the next step was to get permission from the Horticultural Services Division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries, which maintains the Botanic Gardens, to get signs to label the plants, naming them and explaining their importance, complete with QR codes. The Royal Botanic Gardens were established in 1818 by Governor Sir Ralph Woodford on an abandoned sugar estate, under botanist David Lockhart. “In 2024, there was much behind-the-scenes work collecting information and finding funding through private donations, with the help of Rotary Club of Central Port of Spain, done toward financing soon-to-be permanent signage and labelling of all plants in the garden. “People don’t understand, for example, every butterfly or moth has its own specific host plant, a plant on which they lay their eggs that their caterpillars can eat. There’s only one or two plants that it does that on. "We have 22 host plants in the garden for various butterflies.” [caption id="attachment_1140507" align="alignnone" width="957"] The Garden With Wings, the butterfly garden at the Royal Botanic Gardens, in its early stages in February 2022 . - Photo courtesy Serina Allison Hearn[/caption] She said in 2022, two trellises were designed and installed. One was planted with passionfruit vines or passiflora, a host plant for four butterflies, and the other with garlic vine. Together, they host the Agraulis vanillae, also known as the Gulf fritillary or passion butterfly, the Dryas iulia or flambeau butterfly, the Heliconius melpomene or postman, the Eueides isabella or Isabella’s longwing and the Heliconius charithonoa or zebra longwing. Nectar plants for the butterflies include milkweed, zinnias, lantanas, hibiscus, ixora, asters and vervine (vervain). And some nectar plants were also host plants. “A lot of the people who come to the garden are interested in nature. That in itself is one aspect. "And people are always fascinated, because there are 58 species of butterflies and moths in the UK, while TT is home to over 760 identified species of butterflies and 3,000 unidentified moths.” [caption id="attachment_1140445" align="alignnone" width="1024"] The entrance to the butterfly garden at the Botanic Gardens, in Port of Spain. - Photo by Ayanna Kinsale[/caption] She said agriculturist Charlene Maria Woo Ling and her team visited once a month to mulch the beds, weed the paths and generally maintain the garden. As an advocate of syntropic gardening, a method that mimics the structure of a natural forest ecosystem, neither Woo Ling nor Hearn used artificial fertilisers. Since the project had no funding, volunteers also helped, but there was no one dedicated to the garden, as Hearn worked in the US. Hearn believed it was very important to create a legacy, so if she cannot be there to keep it up, someone else could take up the slack. So she would like to connect with UWI and the TT Field Naturalists’ Club, and reach out to botanists and people interested in biodiversity, to create a community working on “trading joy and hope.” She hopes to get permission one day to extend the garden. “I figure if you’re doing this as a volunteer, you’re doing it for love. When we started this garden, I applied for funding and we didn’t get it. A lot of projects, when the money runs out, the project stops. "But if you do something with love and for love, love doesn’t run out.”   The post A home for butterflies and love appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.