Benton City beckoning butterflies with new garden

By Drew Foster, Herald staff writer

BENTON CITY -- A Benton City councilwoman is working to make her town a destination for local and world travelers.

The draw? A city-owned gravel lot at Babs Avenue and Second Street.

With the help of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Councilwoman Lorna Deckert began cultivating a butterfly garden last spring, which draws myriad species of butterflies native to the Mid-Columbia, including the easily recognizable international traveler, the monarch. It flies as far south as Mexico in the winter.

"Each morning, when I go to water, there are different butterflies I don't even see in my garden," Deckert said.

Jim Hyde, resident entomologist with Benton County's Washington State University Extension office, said butterfly gardens are a simple way to draw the gracious insects to your yard.

"There's quite a few butterflies in this area," he said.

Among many others, the garden attracts swallowtails, brown skippers, West Coast ladies and checkerspots.

The garden, dubbed the Yellowstone Trail Butterfly Garden, sits behind a covered bus stop, where flowers and bushes grow in raised beds bordered with stacked, flat rocks that were excavated from Earl Norman's property.

It's not always easy to find butterflies.

"You have to be observant," Deckert said, adding that more should flock to the garden in about a month as the plants continue to develop.

The garden is populated with mostly perennials -- penstemon, scabiosa, lewisia, autumn sage, sedum.

"These are going to be things that can survive winters and don't take too much water," Deckert said.

She hopes her effort to beautify Benton City catches on, inspiring others to take on small projects.

"This is something we're really working to get other people involved in," she said. "It makes people appreciate (the city)."

Deckert's garden is not as developed as the butterfly garden inside the Highlands Grange Park Garden near the Kennewick library on Union Street, but, one day, Deckert hopes her garden plays a similar educational role.

"This whole thing is a work in progress," she said. As the garden matures, Deckert plans to have elementary students paint butterflies on an informational sign that sits in the garden. She also wants to work with Kiona-Benton High School to grow plants at the school's greenhouse to be transplanted to the garden.

Ki-Be District Superintendent Rom Castijella said he hasn't made plans to use the garden as an educational tool, but said he'd be open to the idea.

"I've seen the work Lorna's been doing down there and it's been good," he said. "I think it would be a neat connection."

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Monday, Jun. 08, 2009

Benton City beckoning butterflies with new garden

By Drew Foster, Herald staff writer