Senior plans butterfly garden for Girl Scout award

Savannah Ostler, Staff Reporter|April 20, 2016

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Gallery • 5 Photos
Dennis Greeley
Senior Katie Hartle stands next to her project advisor, Claud Cluff. He is from the City of Chandler Parks Department.
Turning over a new leaf is exactly what senior Katie Hartle hoped to do with her new butterfly garden.The debut of her garden was on Mar. 26 at Tumbleweed Park. The project was undertaken as her Girl Scout Gold Award Project, which is the highest honor a Girl Scout can receive. Hartle has been a part of the Girl Scout program for seven years.
“My project, it took me over a year to finish this, its over 2,100 square feet of garden area, and it has host and nectar plants which are necessary for all butterflies. But to be a monarch way station which it also is, it has to have milkweeds, which is the only plant that monarchs will lay their eggs on,” Hartle says. “So it has two different types of milkweeds, it has a bunch of host and nectar plants, over 100 plants, all of them for the different stages of several butterflies life cycles,” she continues.
Hartle’s English teacher and attendee of the Opening Ceremony for the garden, Tammy Soelberg says,“It [the garden] was totally different than we thought. When she first told us [about it we] were thinking, ‘butterfly wonderland’ where it’s enclosed and butterflies. No, she created a garden for butterflies…she has all this great area where butterflies should be able to come.”
Ann Burkhart of the Southwest Monarch Study and board member was one of the guest speakers at the grand opening of the Monarch Butterfly Program. She explains, “This garden is important for the community…[and] for the future of our pollinators. This butterfly garden also helps the conservation efforts that benefit the Monarch butterfly. As the Monarchs migrate through Arizona in the spring and fall, they have a habitat to lay eggs, and sip nectar during their journey.”
“It’s also really impactful, I’ve realized I can make a difference in the community and in the world because that garden is going to be there for a really long time now. It’s not just impacting me, it’s impacting everyone who visits the park and the butterflies as well. It’s an eye opener to see what people can do,” Hartle says.
“I think it’s a huge thing for the community…This took a year for her to come up with and figure it out,” Soelberg says. “She has the community invested in it…They’re going to continue to take care of this for years to come.”
“[For the Girl Scout Gold Award] You have to do at least 100 individual hours put into this on your own…And then you have to get volunteers to work on it and get donations and plan and budget… It’s a lot of work,” Hartle explains.
Burkhart says, “She spent time researching park locations, plants that would be appropriate for butterfly survival, and contacted local butterfly and plant experts. The planning process and then implementing the final stages of the garden was a huge undertaking. I am so impressed with her skills, and the final outcome of the garden was beautiful and functional! She definitely earned this award.”