Trunkline Magazine (Louisville Zoo) June 2018 | Page 15

Every Butterfly Needs a Bloom We have the perfect blooms to delight and sustain our colorful-winged friends. Here are just a few nectar and host plants you'll see inside and outside our exhibit. • • • • • Blazing star Pale purple coneflower Whorled milkweed Wild blue indigo Asters • • • • • Lantana Annabelle hydrangea Zinnia Verbena Butterfly Weed Presented by Flutter Fest! Our High Flying Event! Brought to you in partnership with Idlewild Butterfly Farm Join us on Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018 for the return of Flutter Fest! To celebrate the end of this season’s butterfly adventure, we will tag and release over 1,000 monarch butterflies coinciding with the annual migration of monarch butterflies. "Bug out" while you participate in fun education activities before the release. Summer Gardens Take Flight By Matt Lahm, Asst. Curator of Conservation Education Did you visit the popular But- terflies n’ Blooms exhibit last year? The exhibit has returned for 2018, bringing with it many beautiful plants loved by people and butter- flies alike. Below we’ll tell you about one of our vibrant plants from last year and one popular plant returning for a second year that you can use as inspiration to create backyard habitat for native North American butterflies and other pollinators. We’ll also showcase a new plant species we’ll be introducing to the exhibit this year. St. John’s wort ‘Deppe’ Sunny Boulevard™, Hypericum kalmianum was our exhibit last year. This is a small, densely growing, deciduous, native shrub that produces showy, yellow flowers in late summer. It is easily grown to a mound about 2 – 3 feet tall and 2 – 4 feet wide in full sun to partial shade. This plant prefers moist, rich loams but will tolerate poor soils. With St. John’s wort being a native species, it is a low maintenance plant that is typi- cally used as a low hedge, border, in rock gardens, as wooded area margins, on rocky slopes, and in wild gardens, naturalized areas or pond peripheries. This plant is very popular with pollinators and does not experience serious insect or disease problems. Another plant native of eastern North America that is located out- side of the butterfly exhibit in our Spicebush official Monarch Way Station: Spice- bush, Lindera benzoin. Spicebush is a medium-sized, deciduous, under- story shrub that grows 6 – 12 feet tall and wide. The leaves produce a spicy fragrance when crushed. It prefers well-drained soils in full sun to part shade, but will toler- ate full shade and clay soils. This C ontinued on next page Louisville Zoo Trunkline • Summer 2018 • 15