The Butterfly Garden

For 25 years, our passionate volunteers at the Celery Farm have cultivated the Pauline Oxnard Butterfly Garden. Located next to the tractor and bench on the Lake Appert trail, this Garden was the inspiration for the new, adjacent Pollinator Meadow that will become its partner. The Butterfly Garden was founded by a group of women, including Lillian Thomas, wife of Celery Farm founder Stiles Thomas, and our goal is to honor, preserve, and expand its quarter-century of outsized impact. Without the years of efforts from the Butterfly Garden’s volunteer team, the Pollinator Meadow project would never have been a possibility.

At the Celery Farm, both the Butterfly Garden and its neighbor, the long-established Meadow at the Green Way entrance, have been highlights of educational events sponsored by the Fyke Nature Association. Nature Walks regularly begin at the Meadow at the Green Way entrance, one of the Celery Farm’s most crucial bastions of native plants (including many native grasses), and the Butterfly Garden enthralls both human and pollinator visitors at our yearly July Butterfly Walk. If you are interested in attending these or other free, open-to-the-public events, please visit the Events page.

In Memory of Pauline Oxnard

Tom Oxnard writes:

Pauline was a native of Portishead England and came to America in the early 1970s. She and I were married in 1979 and moved to a house on Powell Road in Allendale. She was an ardent gardener and naturalist and became very fond of frequent trips to the Celery Farm. Eventually she met Stiles and Sis and the four of us became fast friends. Over time, she helped Stiles on various projects at the CF. Unfortunately she got sick with leukemia in 1993 and died in November 1995. Before she died she passed on her love Of nature and the outdoors to her son, Tom Jr. He and I are very proud of the fact that the butterfly garden is named for her.

Here are some photos from the Butterfly Garden's beginnings.