Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Butterfly Garden

Many of you may already know that we live at a garden center. My family's business is a nursery here in Central Texas and I live on the same property as the nursery. The garden center is called Snooper's Nursery, formerly located in Austin, TX. Now their business is in Round Rock, TX. My grandfather and father have run Snooper's Nursery for over 30 years now.

In the last 2 or 3 years, an acquaintance of my family has built a butterfly garden on the property. The lady who cares for the butterflies and the garden is now good friends with my 9 year old daughter, Lily. Lily knows all about butterflies now. They charge a few dollars for nursery visitors to enter the butterfly garden and look around.


If you're ever in the Austin area, you should stop by and visit! We spent some time inside the butterfly garden over the weekend. I was able to take some photos with my phone. I'd love to take some with my real camera, but with my 2 year old running around trying to catch the butterflies it isn't easy to take photos.



Sadly, I don't know much about the butterflies. The only one I know is the Zebra Longwing which is pictured in the very top photo of the collage. It's found from South America all the way up to South Texas and even in Florida. It's actually the official state butterfly of Florida since 1996. 

Inside the garden, there are also some butterfly chrysalis waiting to hatch from caterpillars to butterflies. On Sunday, we got to see some hatching butterflies but a few of them had some trouble getting out of their cocoons. The photo below is of a bunch of butterfly chrysalis. It's taken through a plastic screen, so that's what all the blurry stuff is. 


I took a short video of the butterflies doing their thing on Sunday too. Again, it's hard to take photos and videos with a 2 year old around so it's not the best.


Anyways, I think the butterfly garden is pretty cool so I thought I'd share with you all. Let me know what your favorite butterfly is in the comments!

36 comments:

  1. Wez back :) andhave missed youz. My Daddy would love to live with you BOL.. What bootiful Photo's xxxoxxxxx


    Mollie and Alfie

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  2. Love the butterfly garden, thanks for sharing it!

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  3. I think the butterfly garden is GORGEOUS! Thank you for sharing! I don't have a favorite, I just think that all butterflies are beautiful. You are so lucky to live at a Nursery, you get to always be surrounded by beautiful plants and flowers!

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    1. I don't really have a favorite either Caren. They are all pretty!

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  4. Wow!!!! It's amazing! Thanks for sharing with us! And hey, I know how you feel about doing these things around a little one!!!! BOL Mine is three, and they don't make easy, god love them!
    ღ husky hugz ღ frum our pack at Love is being owned by a husky!

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  5. Oh Ann, so jealous. LOVE it! We always wanted to go to Austin and we will for sure visit (someday). Golden Woofs

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  6. How awesome! I love all the butterflies.

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  7. A butterfly garden is wonderful. I visited one many moons ago and it was like a magic wonderland :o)

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  8. Granny and I love butterflies. Granny because they're beautiful and I because I can chase on them..MOL.. :D The pictures are beautiful, Ann, don't worry. Pawkisses :)

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  9. I really enjoyed your butterfly garden and we love to watch the butterflies flutter by. Our favorite butterflies are the ones out front!

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  10. They are all beautiful! And somehow we didn't know about the nursery either. The garden really looks huge what a great idea. I have been in small ones before at museums. Love Dolly

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    1. The butterfly house really isn't too big. Probably the same size as the one in your museum.

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  11. ann.....thanx for sharing...how cool is this !!! really like number one and the ones on the bottom...hope shiner can't get in there...she would have a...... "field day " !!!

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    1. Nah Shiner would probably care less about them lol. She can't get in there anyways!

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  12. Butterflies have always been kind of creepy to me (along with most things they fly) but I can say that they look beautiful in your pictures!

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  13. How amazing to be able to live by that! I'd adore having a place like that here. My favorite butterflies are any of the Swallowtails. There's just something about them that looks so graceful. They can be attracted here by growing curly-leaf parsley. Now if I only knew how to attract Luna moths. Despite having some of the native trees they are supposed to like, I haven't seen one in years. Could you, please, ask the butterfly lady if she knows?

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    1. Really? Curly leaf parsley... that's interesting. I know she uses a lot of plants that attract butterflies in there. Looks like a lot of Lantana, butterfly bush... I know there is milkweed planted out front... next time I see her I will try to remember to ask!

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    2. Well the Swallowtails love parsley for some reason. I didn't have good luck with the flat-leaf kind though. Their caterpillars will also eat the leafy tops of carrots if you catch some. They're really supposed to like anise plants, and those are related somehow. I never could get any anise growing for the kids, so just stuck with growing the parsley.

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  14. They are pretty. The zoo here has a butterfly house that is somewhat similar.

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  15. I don't really have a favorite butterfly, I think they're all beautiful and unique. I love the fact that your daughter has taken ann interest. I have dear friends in Austin, so I will certainly let them know - their daughter loves butterflies and would enjoy reading this post. Thanks

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  16. Those butterflies...or as we call them...flutterbys....are just gorgeous!

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  17. Such beautiful pictures. Butterfly gardens are so lovely and it's fun to watch what kind of butterflies are drawn to it.

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  18. Your phone takes some pretty great photos. We took my DSLR camera to the zoo over the weekend and got some great shots of the animals.

    The only breed of butterfly I know is the monarch. I'm so not butterfly educated :)

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    1. Lol, the monarch is a good one! I bet DSLR camera at the zoo would be awesome!

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  19. That is SO awesome! We love butterflies, and think it is wonderful that you have a butterfly habotat right at your garden center. :)

    Swallowtails are our favorites, but they are all so unique and beautiful.

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  20. Ann, great photos! I, too, love the swallowtail butterflies. Actually love them all. I tried to get photos of some a couple of weeks ago at The Natural Gardner nursery in south Austin, but they kept flitting away! :) http://www.naturalgardeneraustin.com/location-hours.html

    If you have never taken your daughter there she would love it. In addition to the outdoor butterfly garden they have a donkey, and goats, and chickens as well as a nursery (although it sounds like you have everything at home at your fingertips!).

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    1. Hmm I'll have to check it out. We definitely don't have the farm animals, although we probably could if we wanted to...

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  21. Butterfly gardens are the best. We went to one in Niagara Falls. Just beautiful.

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  22. I love butterflies! Thanks for sharing this!!!

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  23. That is so cool, Ann! I think the photos are great. I don't really know much about butterflies, other than the Monarch which is our most common one around here.

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  24. I had no idea you were a legit garden expert. How cool! We're working on a container garden on our deck, but it's slow going because I have a bit of a brown thumb. LOL! I absolutely love love love the butterfly garden.

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    1. Oh my gosh, far from expert I'd say! I am always asking my mom about stuff.

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  25. that is Beautiful Ann,you a one lucky lady to live there,xx Rachel

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