A Garden Through A Child's Eyes

Hershey Gardens has a wonderful Children's Garden area which has 32 themed garden areas and a seasonal Butterfly House. We allowed Lillian to explore this area out of her stroller, although I did carry her most of the time in the Butterfly House so she wouldn't grab the butterflies that were covering the flowers.

The gates to the Children's Garden set the tone with these whimsical sculptures. I wouldn't mind these ants at a picnic.

And this has to be one of the happiest bees I've ever seen. Just look at that smile!

Inside the Butterfly House this butterfly asks "Are you my Mother?"

Please note, although they do provide an butterfly identification brochure for use while in the Butterfly House, I was holding Lillian in one arm and snapping pictures with the other. So I will refrain from identifying any of these flying beauties. I'm sure I could take the time to look up the names on the internet, that goldmine of information, but for me, just enjoying the pretty pictures is enough. At least for now, maybe someday I will look them up and identify them all.

Lillian was getting ready to grab this one, I had to race over and scoop her up to prevent butterfly homicide.

While I am just showing the Butterfly stage of these delightful creatures, the whole lifecycle was represented. Several volunteers staffed the Butterfly House, ready to explain anything about the various stages of the lifecycle or help identify the various species.

Outside the Butterfly House was this fountain area with striking cannas and fountain grass.

Here is the fountain. It was great fun watching the ball spin in the ever changing vertical stream of water.

One of the themed garden areas was the River-Banker's Picnic secluded nook. I just loved these "toad stools".

The other themed areas include a pretzel maze made of not too difficult hedgerows to navigate. The path was brown tile with large pieces of quartz - the salt of the pretzel! There was also an Alphabet Boarder, with a plant to represent each of the twenty-six letters. The Spa-Tacular Garden has a claw foot bathtub planted with all sorts of soothing varieties. And one of my favorites was the Botanical Tunes Garden, complete with giant xylophone and floor chimes to jump on.

This Children's Garden is a delight for children of all ages and a must see when visiting Hershey Gardens. They do close the Butterfly House in the fall though. None of the butterflies are harmed, they are allowed to live out there lives in this butterfly utopia and only when none are left, is the structure taken down so it isn't damaged by the Pennsylvanian snows.

The Story of a Poor Butterfly Bush

I have to admit that I am ashamed to have to call this "The Story of a Poor Butterfly Bush", with poor being the operative word. I am so ashamed, I didn't even take a before picture. There is no way I could post it, so why even bother taking it.

My husband planted this bush at least a couple years ago on one of our problem banks. This is where the trouble starts. Our property is riddled with these banks which are covered in vetch which, if you want to keep the hillsides cut down it is a time consuming job better suited to a mountain goat. But since it was a nice sunny spot and he was optimistic about being able to maintain this area, that's where he planted it.

Since it is not really in a nice and tidy bed, it had been forgotten this year. And for various reasons, we haven't been keeping the hillsides as trimmed and the grass cut as short as we have in the past. This is not really a problem because it is very rural where we live, but back to the Butterfly Bush.

I didn't even realize it was still alive. But a couple of weeks ago my husband asked me if I had time during the day, would I clean out around it. So last week, on one of those gorgeous days, I did just that. Part of the reason for waiting is that it had been too darn hot to be wearing boots out in the yard. And now you are asking, why would you have to wear boots. The first reason goes back to the fact that despite all my hill climbing work, I am not a mountain goat and I don't want to twist my ankle working on these hills. The second reason is this guy or some relative of his, whom I was afraid might be lurking about on the hillside.

This guy was in our garage on Saturday, but more on him at a later date.

So with my boots on, I was able to clear out all the vetch and cut out the dead branches. I then put some mulch around the base to try and discourage the vetch from coming back. The result is this. Now, I know this still doesn't look great, but it's a vast improvement from the before.


You can't really tell from the picture but there are several flower heads getting ready to bloom. So soon, this guy will have another choice for his dining pleasure.

Thus ends our tale. It is a hopeful ending. Hopeful that I can keep things nice for our dear Butterfly Bush and it can thrive here at our lovely home and become a feeding ground for many lovely flying friends.

Butterfly and Blooms

It has been a while since my last post because we have been working like crazy to get this yard and garden in order. Between the mowing, trimming, weeding, and planting there was no time for posting. Here is the first of many catch up posts.

While outside after a day of working, Lillian and I spotted this butterfly on the alliums. She stayed around long enough for us to get the camera and take several shots. Here are two of them.