Scouts plant garden to attract colorful insects
By:Matthew Kirdahy
If you see butterflies fluttering around the historic Slack-Carroll house on Georges Road in Dayton, then the Girl Scouts have done their job.
For their Girl Scouts Silver Award, the 13- to 14-year-old members of Troop 353 planted a butterfly garden in the backyard of the 150-year-old house in June.
Girl Scout Catie Repka said she hasn’t seen any butterflies, but the garden is planted in such a way that she hopes the plants will attract the flying insects.
The garden is just one way the Girl Scouts have helped spruce up the house, which was saved in March 2001 by the Dayton Village Citizens’ Coalition. Once renovations are completed on the house, it will serve as a Civil War museum.
Since 2001, the local Girl Scouts have helped spruce up the place.
"It’s our own little pet project," troop leader Barbara Laniado said. Troop 782 painted the house three years ago, she said.
Ms. Laniado and Joan Cook Luckhardt of the Dayton Village Citizens’ Coalition lead Troop 353 in the butterfly garden project, which officially ended Sunday with a picnic and ribbon cutting at the Slack-Carroll House.
The coalition and the South Brunswick Garden Club sponsored the public event.
The troop planted the garden in June.
The project lasted the entire school year, troop member Emily Clark said.
Emily worked with Catie and fellow troop members Chelsea Laniado, Valeri Kaplan, Rachel and Rebbeca Eppelsheimer, Susie Miller and Lianne Braconi on the butterfly garden from researching to planting.
"It was fun," Catie said. "Planting didn’t take that much time."
As part of the butterfly garden project, the Scouts had to research the fine details of planting such a garden. The garden includes plants and flowers like butterfly weeds, butterfly bushes and black-eye Susans.
Dr. Luckhardt, said in a July 12 e-mail that the plants in the garden provide a habitat for larval butterfly stages and ideal living conditions for adult butterflies.
Emily said the girls learned the majority of that information in books. Once they gathered the information, the girls made some calls for gardening materials.
"We had to spend a lot of time on it," Emily said. "It took a while to get supplies from people because it took a few weeks to call them and get an answer back. Plus, weather wasn’t always good."
Then the troop designed the butterfly garden using specific plants that could survive behind the Slack-Carroll house.
Dr. Luckhardt said the Scouts mapped out their plan on the Slack-Carroll property and even took soil samples looking for stones or cement that might interfere with the planting. The Scouts marked the areas then tilled and mixed new topsoil and organic material.
Dr. Luckhardt said the girls researched the project at the library and interviewed experts from nurseries to determine which plants and garden ornaments would be most appropriate for the garden.
The girls contacted businesses like Von Thun’s Country Farm Market on Ridge Road, Crossroads Nursery on Georges Road and Amato’s on Route 130 for planting instructions and supply and monetary donations.
The Scouts also raised money from ticket sales at the Karen Young and the Spin River Band concert May 8.
To thank local businesses, the scouts decorated a bench placed in the garden and placed a plaque in the garden.
"I’m proud of them," Ms. Laniado said. "I had ideas of what I thought it would look like and they did a really good job. They laid plans out and decided where each plant was going to go and everything. It really came out nice."