Butterfly Rangers and Pollinator Gardens in Goderich

BY RHEA HAMILTON-SEEGER

There is a quiet buzzing across the countryside and if you look carefully you can see why. In Goderich there are four new Butterflyway Rangers and they are eager to encourage the planting of more native plants to attract pollinators to the garden.

 

The Butterfly Rangers is a citizen-lead movement for growing highways of habitat for bees and butterflies across Canada. Sounds pretty cool! It was initiated by the David Suzuki Foundation in 2017 and since then about 7,400 habitat gardens have been established in more than 300 communities. Without pollinators we endanger ourselves. They are a necessary part of the web of life, the food chain that feeds us and many other creatures. 

 

There are several public gardens in Goderich that are planted with native plants and visitors can take a walk around and look for insect activity. The Goderich group has been busy planting at the Huron County Library on Montreal Street and there is a pollinator garden in the Lions Park behind the Parkhouse on West Street. Not to be missed is the Butterfly Park at the end of Blake Street. The gardens here feature name tags on a wide variety of plants and hopefully you will see butterflies and other pollinators. You also have to be a bit of a quiet detective and look for clues on the plants to see either eggs or wee larvae nibbling on the leaves. Holes in your native plants and interesting larvae is a sign of success!

 

For the younger at heart, there is a playground with a massive butterfly to hang on and, of course, picnic tables with our favourite butterfly painted on them. 

 

The Butterfly Rangers have two simple goals: to encourage the awareness of the pollinators in our surroundings and to encourage the planting/integrating of native plants in the neighbourhood, either in our gardens, in pots here and there, or on a balcony all in the hope of seeing twelve or more habitat gardens in close proximity. 

 

It is an exciting community project with the goal of taking care of pollinators and creating a map. The small group is marking a map of Goderich with both the public and private gardens. Then we expect to see Butterflyways appear.

 

With this knowledge it is easy to understand that the more native plants we have in the community the better we can support pollinators.