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
    Zinnias in the butterfly garden at Scioto Audubon Metro Park. (Catherine Draves)

 

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 Monarch Mansion at Blendon Woods. (Karen Ricker)

 

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
    Pollinator Friendly Garden at Walnut Woods (Mindi McConnell)

 

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
    Ebony jewelwing damselfly (David Celebrezze)

 

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
    Bugstravaganza (Annette Boose)

 

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