A new garden in Nolensville will assistance sustain Monarch Butterflies

A little tract of land together with Nolensville High College has officially opened to the community as a serene pollinator backyard.

Prepared with intention, neighborhood flora and fauna in brain, the back garden serves during its migration, as perfectly as other pollinators.

Monarch butterflies are a threatened species — the population east of the Rocky Mountains is in severe drop.

“We regarded as a several structure iterations and arrived at the arrangement that you see listed here,” stated landscape architect Micah Hargrove. “Website structure, plant selection and composition are guided by scientific study.” 

Hargrove volunteers with the Mill Creek Watershed Association, the nonprofit organization and workforce at the rear of the web-site. Hargrove and director Kathleen Dennis labored with local nonprofits, volunteers, and artisans, as effectively as the town of Nolensville, to system and execute the yard, as perfectly as attain grants for the venture. 

The backyard sits together with an unnamed tributary of the Mill Creek Watershed, a 27.9-mile-extensive feeder into the Cumberland River. The system of drinking water runs through Davidson and Williamson counties.

For monarch butterflies especially, the back garden will act as a “way station” that offers them with sustenance and a area to lay eggs on their migration to Central Mexico for the wintertime.

This is why one of the most integral plants in the yard is milkweed — the only plant monarch butterflies feed on and lay eggs. Four species of milkweed are clustered alongside the garden’s perimeter for straightforward accessibility.

The yard houses 25 distinct species of plants—including the numerous milkweed— that have the electrical power to aid more than 100 species of wildlife, like deer, songbirds, bees, moths, and butterflies throughout the year.”The back garden demonstrates what can be completed in a extremely small room with planning and enter from the community,” Hargrove stated.

The garden, which opened in late July, will also aid in superior absorbing stormwater in comparison to the nonnative turf grass formerly planted.