Butterfly Garden Design

Who designed the Butterfly Garden at Hunters Creek Elementary School?

Hunters Creek Elementary School is located at 10650 Beinhorn Rd, Houston, TX 77024. This year Exterior Worlds had the great honor of donating a landscape design for a new butterfly garden in memory of Mrs. Kellie Sewell. The children really enjoy watching the day to day evolution of the project. The garden was completed in April 2008 and the teachers and children have begun using the garden for an outdoor classroom.

When challenged with creating a butterfly garden for a public school, one must always consider a low maintenance design. By using durable materials such as gravel, stone, boulders and native drought resistant plants we created a garden that should survive the rigors of drought, require minimal maintenance, and hard play. The final garden composition consists of a circular stone entry beneath a beautiful scenic mural serving as a backdrop to two seated courtyard gardens. Large boulders and long benches create opportunities for two outdoor classrooms as well as intimate seating spaces for teachers and students between classes. Multi-truck trees such as Bottle Brush are planted for vertical interest and shade. Grasses and butterfly attractors such as Butterfly Bush, Butterfly Iris, Milkweed, Hamelia, Russelia and Turks Cap are grouped throughout the garden. The entire landscape is planted in gravel for easy weed maintenance and completely eliminates the need for annual mulching.
We hope the garden will inspire creativity, imagination and be a source of inspiration and renewal for years to come. Special thanks also to the many parents who have donated their time, energy and finances in making the beautifully painted wall mural a reality.

What other low maintenance elements can you add to your garden? Here are some design ideas for low maintenance landscapes:
• Choose drought-resistant plants, like pampas grass, Plumbago, and Lantana. You might even choose older rose varieties, which are hardier than modern large-flowered hybrids. Many times these old varieties don’t require as much spraying.
• Avoid plants that need continuous pruning, like boxwood and dwarf yaupons (often used in hedges).
• Stay away from plants, such as azaleas, that are susceptible to diseases or insect problems.
• Mulching can be eliminated by using gravel, which rarely needs to be replaced.
• The use of gravel instead of mulch also cuts down on weeds and helps retains soil.
• Use ground covers that don’t need regular pruning and will cover the ground so that weeds are controlled. This type of ground cover is another choice that eliminates or reduces mulching.
• Maximize your annual flowers by installing flowers in planters, urns or bowls to lower the costly replacements season to season. Even eliminate the flowers completely and install perennials, which never need to be replaced.

Call the experts at Exterior Worlds—713-827-2255—and get their landscaping ideas for your home. Exterior Worlds has been providing memorial landscaping designs and services for fine neighborhoods such as Memorial, Tanglewood, West University, and the greater Houston area since 1987.