Sydenham HS Wins a Butterfly Garden

Wilma Kenny | Oct 06, 2011

Photo: Grade 10 students insert plants for the new butterfly garden.

An eco-auditing contest run by the Kingston Sustainability Centre's "Youth Mentoring Youth" program has awarded Sydenham High a butterfly garden as a reward for the school's environmental awareness. Exactly what does a newly-awarded butterfly garden look like? In this case, it comes as bags of soil, compost and mulch, a lot of pots of plants, shovels, trowels, gloves and water pails. This week, members of the International Society for Conservation Biology (themselves biology students at Queen's) demonstrated planting techniques to two grade ten classes. The garden plot had already been worked up in a sunny spot at the front of the school, and within an hour, the plants were all tucked into the garden, watered and mulched. Western 

Landscape services of Elginburg donated the supplies and initial digging. The plants chosen were native or naturalized ones that will attract butterflies with their leaves, nectar and colour. 

Because this is SHS's garden, the flowers will all be red or yellow, the school colours.