Jan
22
 
Michelle McCarter was never a gardener. A stay-at-home mom, she was always busy juggling the packed schedules of three children.
A garden, much less a butterfly garden, was not on top of her to-do list. Especially considering that she had no experience.
“I didn’t know anything about gardening,” she said.
But she had noticed something about Margaux, her autistic daughter. Margaux, who was 6 at the time, had a heightened sense of touch. The dirt, the digging, the watering – it would create a world of textures for Margaux’s little hands to explore.
And butterflies.
Butterflies, with their fluttering and vibrant colors, would give Margaux something to watch and hold.
“I worked in Margaux’s class and so we started making a garden for the children,” she said.
McCarter, whose gardening philosophy entailed “dig a hole and shove it in,” learned through the tried-and-true method of “playing around.”
“Some plants died, others made it,” she said.
She grew milkweed, cone flowers, and passion vine, providing a buffet of nectars to lure the butterflies.
“Butterflies live off of weeds. So, at the very least, the plants aren’t finicky. They are hearty and aren’t water hungry,” McCarter said.
Beyond facilitating the life of her plants, McCarter experimented with landscaping, carefully arranging the plants to grow in a pleasing sprawl of colors and shapes.
“That was all self-taught, too,” McCarter said.
When the family moved to Torrance from Mission Viejo two years ago, McCarter turned their new yard into a virtual butterfly home, winding milkweed through her planters and setting up trellises from which the butterflies could hang their cocoons.
“My neighbor said, `There are no butterflies here,”‘ McCarter recalls. “I changed that.”
Monarchs and gulf fritillaries soon populated her yard with their gentle presence.
Margaux is now 11. Her father, Rick McCarter, said he has seen his daughter blossom in the garden.
“I enjoy watching my wife and daughter in the garden together,” he said. “It is so rewarding. Autism is a weird thing, and for Margaux, it calms her down to be in the garden. I love how she gets a kick out of it and just enjoys being in nature. She likes to water, work the soils together and look for cocoons. She has compulsive disorder so this breaks up her day in a good way.”
Michelle McCarter said having a garden is a blessing for her, too.
“I garden to de-stress,” she said. “It’s my place to be at rest.”
She has a front seat to the captivating cycles of butterfly life: from prickly black caterpillar to nugget-sized cocoon to stunning butterfly.
She likes the gentle nature of the butterflies and the interaction.
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