The Butterfly Garden at Ganna Walska’s Lotusland

Lotusland of Santa Barbara preserves the incredible gardens designed by opera singer Ganna Walska. The collection includes a number of themed gardens, including the Japanese garden, the blue garden, and the butterfly garden. Comprising a wide range of flowering plants, the butterfly garden is designed to create scents that will attract beneficial insects. Some horticulturalists refer to butterfly gardens as “insectaries” due to their ability to attract helpful insects. 

At Lotusland, the butterfly garden plays an important role in protecting the collection as a whole by providing sustenance for insects that eat pests like thrips and aphids. Located next to the parterre and the orchards, the insectary helps protect the flowers and fruits in these areas. 

Lotusland has adopted a sustainable gardening plan that uses only organic materials to support the various gardens, and the insectary makes this organic approach to gardening possible. The insectary also enhances the beauty of the garden by attracting butterflies, especially monarchs, which only lay their eggs on milkweed, a central component of the Lotusland butterfly garden.

The Lotusland Fourth-Grade Outreach and Education Program

 As part of its work to preserve the historic estate of Madame Ganna Walska, Lotusland cares for a unique array of plants and elaborate gardens. The organization seeks to recognize the importance of plants in the daily lives of humans and nonhumans alike. Keeping education as a central focus, Lotusland invites all fourth-grade classes in southern Santa Barbara County, California, to participate in an environmental outreach program that ties directly into life science lessons taught as part of the public school curriculum.

The educators at Lotusland work closely with each school to design an educational program that will meet the expectations of teachers and engage students. Schools incur no cost by participating in the program, which includes classroom presentations on basic concepts of botany followed by tours of Lotusland. The latter half of the program emphasizes hands-on learning experiences that reinforce the lessons taught in the classroom. As students leave Lotusland, each receives a succulent plant and instructions on how to care.