Butterflies need our help
Butterflies, moths, lightening bugs, bees, dragonflies - insects in general - have declined drastically over the past several decades. It doesn't have to be this way!
As individuals, we have the power to help these precious creatures recover and thrive in Western North Carolina. I've seen it in my own yard in Asheville, NC, and I want to share my love of butterflies and conservation with anyone willing to listen.
Gardening as part of the Homegrown National Park movement has enriched my life in such a profound way. My husband, Ben, and I have turned our .4-acre yard, which started out as mostly turf, into a nature sanctuary by planting a majority of native plants; converting turf to meadow; leaving the leaves; rejecting pesticides/herbicides/rodenticides/insecticides; and adopting other natural practices.
But you don't have to own a yard to help. As your Western North Carolina chapter coordinator of the Carolina Butterfly Society, I'll update this website as time allows with some great opportunities to help bring more butterflies into our lives. FYI, this is my personal website and many of the pictures that I post come from my own yard. Sometimes I have a huge, wonderful surprise when I download them such as the picture of the Red-banded Hairstreak below that I snapped in my backyard. Once I had it on the computer, I realized that I had witnessed it laying egss in the leaf litter! Cheers, Heather Rayburn (Asheville, NC)
© 2024 Heather Rayburn all text and images