Afton
Nelson County, Virginia
It’s been a chilly week for the most part, but that didn’t stop students at Rockfish River Elementary School (RRES) in Afton from working on their butterfly garden that will attract the colorful insects in just a few days as the temperatures warm. “About fifteen kids from five to ten years old have been swinging hoes and shovels and rakes to prepare an old abandoned square of playground into a butterfly garden. They have managed to get the ground ready and a border of plants put in and some seeds sown. They carried bags and backpacks full of stones to put around in the shape of a butterfly, colored them bright colors, and put native green stone down the center for her body. They planted milkweed seeds inside the wings to keep the lifecycle of Monarch’s going,” says Olivia Ellis of Wintergreen Nature Foundation’s (TWNF)Propagation Project at Trillium House.
“50 native plants and several packets of native plant seeds were donated to RRES through a grant from The Chrysler Foundation,” Liz Salas of Wintergreen Nature Foundation, tells Nelson County Life.
