Waverly Butterfly Garden

[Abby Brown] I love flowers. They're beautiful. They smell amazing. And they're delicious.

Not for me or you, but for pollinators like the beloved butterfly.

In Bremer County, there's a whole feast for butterflies in this very special garden.

(Map marking Bremer County in northeast Iowa.)

All butterflies and moths share the same fascinating life cycle.

There are four stages, and in each stage, their appearance is completely different.

This is called metamorphosis, a Greek word that means change.

(A striped yellow, orange and black striped caterpillar clings to a branch while it munches on a leaf. A black and orange Monarch butterfly clings to a branch and the chrysalis it just emerged from.)

Change is a big part of a butterfly's life.

Here at the Waverly Public Library, there's a butterfly garden that not only has loads of inviting flowers for our flying insect friends, but also art sculptures that celebrate their remarkable life cycle.

After checking out the garden map, you can walk the circular garden path to explore.

The first stage of a butterfly's life cycle, as when an adult female butterfly lays eggs on a plant.

This sculpture is an artistic representation of the egg stage.

(Five large, gray oval-shaped stones stand upright in a patch of thick, green grass.)

This host leaf sculpture represents the caterpillar stage of a butterfly or moth's life.

(A leaf shaped sculpture the size of a small boat, has a head and antennae poking out over the top.)

The job of the caterpillar is to eat as much as it can.

This garden is a safe place for caterpillars to feast.

When the caterpillar has eaten all it can and is full grown, it becomes a pupa.

A pupa can also be called a chrysalis.

This sculpture lights up and shows us what a chrysalis looks like.

(The chrysalis is oval in shape with a smooth, glossy texture and is usually one to three inches long.)

Further along the path we come to the final stage. When a butterfly looks like, well, a butterfly.

The brick border of this garden is shaped like a butterfly wing. These beautiful flowers and plants are the perfect place for adult butterflies to hang out.

(Flowers with fuchsia-colored petals wave in the breeze.)

The warmer months in Iowa are the best time to view butterflies in this garden. Why do you think that is?

Every county in Iowa has grown and changed over the decades. Here in Bremer County, butterflies dart around this habitat to remind us how beautiful change can be.

Funding for FIND Iowa has been provided by The Coons Foundation, Pella and the Gilchrist Foundation.