Flutter and Bloom at the Calusa Park Butterfly Garden

It was the last Saturday of September around 8:30 AM and five members of the Calusa Garden Club’s butterfly “warriors” were “busier than bees in a flower farm” at the Calusa Park Butterfly Garden. This was a scheduled maintenance morning, getting the garden ready for the fall pollinating season. Summer is a demanding season for the garden and it can quickly become overgrown. “We try to come here twice a month to keep the growth manageable as plants get leggy and pests start to show,” said Susan LaGrotta, Butterfly Garden Committee Chair.

The Butterfly Garden working group, Debra Kuhlman, Victoria Myers, Donna Kay, Sue Oldershaw and Susan LaGrotta, were focused on key tasks for the next two hours. They had to trim back the ground covers and prune the overgrown bushes.

The Sunshine mimosa (Mimosa strigillosa), with pink flowers, was encroaching over the walkways. The Railroad vine (Ipomoea Pes-caprae), sometimes called beach morning glory, was creeping all over, and the beach dune sunflowers (Helianthus debilis), with their small sunflower-like flowers, were also getting too leggy.

The members also concentrated on pruning and shaping some of the overgrown bushes such as the Firebush (Hamelia patens), a fast-growing small shrub. Its orange flowers, filled with nectar, can quickly take over. The Panama Rose (Rondeletia leucophylla), with clusters of bright pink tubular flowers, another favorite nectar plant, was growing wild and the pink powder puff plant (Calliandra emarginata), known for its fluffy, pompon-like pink flowers, needed shaping and pruning.

According to Susan LaGrotta, the Butterfly Garden started in 2009 when the Calusa Garden Club donated money raised for the City to establish a Butterfly Garden on Calusa Park. Local landscapers donated trees and volunteers from the Calusa Garden Club, Beautification Advisory Committee, and City staff planted the original garden/beds and were instrumental in naming the park. The Calusa Garden Club Butterfly Garden Committee continued to maintain the garden as a local habitat for butterflies and pollinators. In 2012, the Calusa Garden Club, with a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), partnered with the City of Marco Island to maintain the property and provide community outreach.

The Calusa Park Butterfly Garden celebrated its 15th anniversary on October 23, 2024, with a small ceremony that included City staff and other local elected officials. In 2019, it celebrated its 10th year with its first butterfly release.

The Butterfly Garden on Winterberry Drive is in an ideal location with the shared-use pathway. Efforts by the City of Marco Island Bicycle Path Committee allow easy access to traverse the park and check out what’s blooming and observe the many species of butterflies and native plants.

There is a large board which lists the Butterflies of Marco Island with photos and descriptions of butterflies and their host plants. Also dotting the garden are several steel sculptures donated by garden club members. A big thank you to members Brenda and John McGlade for donating two steel butterfly sculptures designed by artists from the Naples Art District. Last week, members of the Butterfly Garden working group and their spouses installed three sets of new bamboo posts and railings to replace the old ones. Thank you, Victor LaGrotta and Roger Kuhlman, for the much-needed help.

According to LaGrotta, over the years, members have donated trees and native plants. The Garden also has information racks with brochures detailing the plantings and history of the Butterfly Garden. “The Garden consists of 75% Florida native plants and we aim for Florida-friendly and native plants,” said Debra Kuhlman, co-chair of the Butterfly Garden Committee.

More than 160 butterfly species breed in Florida and about 200 species migrate throughout the state, according to the website of Florida State Parks. Stop by the Calusa Park Butterfly Garden and check out what’s blooming and fluttering. Is it a Monarch butterfly laying eggs on a milkweed leaf (exclusively) or a Polydamas swallowtail (Battus polydamas) visiting the Dutchman's pipe vine?