Flap your wings at these butterfly and insect havens

Butterfly Garden at Scioto Audubon Metro Park

• Quarter-acre butterfly garden off Maier Place
• Swallowtails, monarchs, skippers, cabbage whites, bumble bees and honeybees
• Garden and adjacent prairie filled with milkweed, butterfly weed, red clover, cup flower, purple asters
  

  

 

Monarch Mansion at Blendon Woods

• The royal residence for local monarchs, outside nature center
• Monarchs lay eggs on milkweed in mansion
• See the process through caterpillar, chrysalis and adult butterfly at the nature center
• Nearby meadows attract clouded sulphurs, black swallowtails and hummingbird moths
  

  

 

The Insect Hotel at Three Creeks

• An insect hotel in the Confluence Trails Area for pollinators, like mason bees and other solitary bees
• Bees crawl into drilled holes in logs, divide it into sections and lay an egg with pollen in each
• Larva overwinter in hotel and emerge as bees the following spring
• Adjacent butterfly garden rife with prairie milkweed, mountain mint, joe pyeweed, Ohio spiderwort, coneflowers and late figwort

 

Pollinator Garden at Walnut Woods

• Small garden, with a bee hotel, and adjacent prairie planted with milkweed, butterfly weed, coneflowers, lavender, bee balm, goldenrod and New England asters
• Monarchs, fritillaries, viceroys and cabbage white butterflies as well as milkweed beetles, bugs and bees
  

  

 

Streams and ponds for dragonflies

• Big Darby and Alum creeks, the wetlands at Pickerington Ponds and Slate Run
• Attract large numbers of darners, skimmers, pennant and meadowhawks
• See ruby-spotted and ebony jewelwing damselflies
  

  

 

Bugstravaganza at Walnut Woods

• Annual celebration of insects and their relatives
• Buckeye Area – Sat Aug 4, 10am
• Catch and release bugs of every kind
• Explore a creek
• Learn about bugs in your backyard
• Crafts and games for kids of all ages
  

  

 

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