Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By TOM LAVENTURE
Ironwood — It was a blissful afternoon for youth and adults who attended the Butterfly Fun event Tuesday at the Evelyn BeDore Butterfly Garden in Ironwood.
“Telling the kids just how important the butterflies are to us is very important,” said Sharlene Schaffer, one of the butterfly park creators. “We just want to let them know the butterflies are here and how important they are in a way that is just having some fun with it.”
Kathy Kafczynski, a program assistant at Ironwood Carnegie Library, the event co-sponsor, read the book “Butterfly Surprise” to the kids as one of several activity stations. It is one of the last summer reading program events and so it’s good to get outside of the library in the butterfly garden, said Lynne Wiercinski, library director.
“They work hard all year round and do all the things to help hatch more butterflies to help the declining population,” Wiercinski said of the garden group.
Located within the 167 acre Miners Memorial Heritage Park, the 2.5 acre garden was created from an unused area of the park adjacent to the city compost site, just off the SISU Trail, Schaffer said.
The work started six years ago when a stone and earth berm wall was constructed to shield the park from the compost site. At the same time the master gardener group was to develop a natural butterfly garden.
“Events like this are real important because I’ve had so many people tell me that they didn’t even know this was here,” Schaffer said of the garden. “I only live two blocks west of here and I never knew any of this was here because you can’t see it from the streets.”
There is a natural seclusion to the butterfly garden with a high berm on one side and the Aurora pond and a creek on the other. The site was cleared of thorny burdock plants and other invasives before the native plants were brought in to restore the land, she said.
Schaffer’s team brought in hollyhocks, bergamot, false sunflowers, golden rod, fireweed and many other native plants and pollinator attracting plants including varieties of milkweed.
Butterflies lay eggs on milkweed and the caterpillars eat the leaves. The leaves are poisonous to other birds and animals and so the caterpillars are largely left alone.
The butterfly migration from Mexico to Canada each year has largely gone through the Escanaba area, Schaffer said. But over the past few years the butterfly population here has grown with these efforts, she said.
“We also want to protect our bees too,” she said. “Because without bees and butterflies we have no food.”
The maintenance is constant to stay ahead of the invasive weeds that could threaten the other vegetation, Schaffer said.
Alyssa Rogo, master gardener volunteer, helped out with the other stations that included origami butterfly making, using butterfly nets, bubble blowing in the field and reading the guide to learn the names of the butterflies.
“They even brought little snacks that look like butterflies,” Schaffer said. “Sharlene did a lot of work.”
As someone who took up gardening four years ago and became a master garden just two years ago, Rogo said she appreciates the role of pollinators as vital to the food chain and the ecosystem. It’s important that kids are exposed to this so the importance will become natural to them, she said.
“It’s really important to have our pollinators be welcomed because there is so much that we do that discourages pollinators in our every day life,” Rogo said. Sometimes we can’t always stop doing that but if we can also add in beneficial things to help the pollinators it will help the environment and us.”
Events like this emphasize the symbiotic relationship in nature that helps us on so many levels personally, collectively and environmentally, she said. There are emotional and psychological benefits to events like this and it brings the community together on something we all agree on whether it’s butterflies or natural spaces for recreation, she said.
“I think all of us definitely benefit from working together on something so important,” Rogo said.
