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"We love your garden. It's full of living stuff!"  Jesse

Secret Garden
     A wild and wonderful garden surrounds a modest clapboard house where eighty-year-old Louise Hallberg has spent her life.  Situated amongst fields and apple orchards near Sebastopol, California (an hour's drive north of San Francisco), the garden is a sanctuary for Pipevine Swallowtails (Battus philenor) and many other butterflies.
     In 1883 John Hallberg, a Swedish immigrant, purchased the land for a farm and orchard.  Four generations of Hallbergs have cared for the orchard over the past century.
     Louise's efforts, since retiring from work and caring for her elderly mother, have focused on the garden.  In the past decade, she and her assistant, Judy Crawford, have added a variety of nectar/host plants and trellises for the abundant California pipevine (Aristolochia californica).
     Seventy years ago, Louise's mother brought a cutting of the native vine from a roadside ditch.  While the vine wasn't planted with butterflies in mind, it has attracted scores of Pipevine Swallowtails because it's their larval food source.  [In the East, look for native Dutchman's pipe (A. durior) or Virginia snakeroot (A. serpentaria), among others.]
     Pipevine's curious flowers hang like old-fashioned ivory pipes.  Toxins in the heart-shaped leaves make larvae and adults so distasteful that several Eastern butterfly species have evolved as mimics (Red-spotted Purple, Spicebush Swallowtail, female Black and Eastern Tiger Swallowtail).

"If the animals wanted to live anywhere, they would live with you."  Lisa

Among the Butterflies
     I've enjoyed two springtime visits to Louise's garden; Pipevine Swallowtails were on the wing in mid-March and in May.  The males' lustrous blue-black wings are bordered with soft white spots (females are a softer grayish-brown).  The underside of the hindwing flashes large orange spots.
     Midday would find me in my favorite spot behind the house, sitting on a bench in a tangle of lilac and flowering quince.  A huge black oak (Sonoma County Heritage Tree #24) sprawls by the kitchen window, its lichen-covered branches attracting woodpeckers.  Its leaves create a loamy soil, where pipevine roots spread slowly.
     It's a perfect spot for quiet contemplation, but there's a lot of activity overhead in the "flyway" between neighboring fields and butterfly garden.  A Mourning Cloak, perched high in a camellia bush, suddenly darts out to chase away another Mourning Cloak.  Having ignored several swallowtails, it engages in a skirmish with an Anise Swallowtail.  Meanwhile, Pipevine and Anise Swallowtails are spiraling above the foliage into a patch of sunshine, defending territories as other swallowtails glide through unnoticed.
     Having spent the morning by the front porch's trellis, I know where the female Pipevine Swallowtails are.  They're fluttering around pipevine tendrils looking for the perfect spot to lay clusters of tiny orange eggs.  Later in the spring (May) the vine is covered with tiny black caterpillars, lined up along leaf edges like teeth on a comb.  Their segmented bodies bear red, fleshy tubercles; longer black feelers in front explore the surface they're crawling on.  One to two broods are common in California (up to four broods populate the South).  If a caterpillar pupates here in July, it's likely to overwinter, since a second brood might find pipevine leaves too old and dry to sustain larvae.

"Thank you for the money plant and the honeysuckel's.  I learned that a plant called
stinging nettle can burn yore hand."   Ethan

Another Garden to Explore
     As afternoon progresses, I follow the sun to the butterfly garden by the orchard.  I'm careful to avoid the nettles that were planted as larval food for Red Admirals (and which arrived with surprise "hitchhiker" caterpillars).  Also cultivated, for the American Painted Lady, is cudweed (Gnaphalium  spp.).
     Large patches of aster and bur-marigold (Bidens spp.) are punctuated by tall Verbena bonariensis.  Several cultivars of Buddleia davidii, along with B. alternifolia and B. globosa, flank the arbor.
     Swallowtails frequent the apple orchard, taking nectar from blossoms and often pupating on tree branches.  Trees near the house receive special attention during pruning, to preserve the chrysalises.  The butterflies are resilient, though.  Louise relates the tale of an Anise Swallowtail chrysalis under a windowsill; brushed during housepainting, its butterfly emerged two years later!

"It was fun to see all of thoes creatures.  If you would get paied I would give you a tip."   Erica

Reaching a New Generation
     Students at Oak Grove School, a half-mile away, enjoy a special relationship with Louise and her butterflies.  They observe the transformation of many butterfly species, while hiding in the secret garden and getting a glimpse of farm life earlier in the century.  Hanging on the barn wall is a sign from the original Oak Grove School, which Louise attended as a girl.  Scrapbooks of kids' thank-you letters reveal the affection she inspires in the community.  She's also active in the Graton Community Club, whose plant sale supports college scholarships.
The Garden's Future
     What are Louise's goals for the property?  Her primary concern is to preserve the garden as a butterfly habitat; she's exploring not-for-profit options.  She'd like to set up a greenhouse and vivarium (butterfly rearing house).  A pond and stream could be created when the well is replaced.
     Public access and education are an important part of the garden's future.  The garden has been included in organized tours, while informal tours are given to school and garden groups.  A butterfly gardening class last year was sold out.  Louise has also made educational exhibits for garden shows and fairs.  She's appeared in a video about butterfly gardening (Attracting Butterflies to Your Backyard, Nature Science Network).
     As word spreads about her garden, demand for tours grows steadily.  An interpretive nature center would be a natural outgrowth of her efforts to involve the public in land stewardship.
 Finally, she'd like to see continuing data collection on butterfly sightings.  A meticulous record-keeper, Louise operates a weather station for the U.S. Department of Commerce--a continuation of her father's hobby, dating from 1930.  She records and compares butterfly species by year, adding remarks like "What a surprising year for caterpillars!"  She's documented forty different species in the garden and orchard, including the uncommon West Coast Lady variant, Letcher's butterfly (Vanessa annabella letcheri).  Frequent visitors are the Echo Blue, Gray Hairstreak, Purplish Copper, Western Tiger Swallowtail, Monarch, Painted Lady, Buckeye, Mournful Dusky Wing, and California Sister.

Louise Hallberg, 8687 Oak Grove Road, Sebastopol, CA 95472; (707) 823-3420.
 

Copyright 1997 by Claire Hagen Dole.