Leonardtown, Maryland, is a lovely small town thanks to its location on the banks of Breton Bay. My friends and I enjoy the historic charm in its architecture and layout, with small shops and restaurants on either side of a park-like town square. Part of the town’s appeal is in the adoption of a self-guided tour called the “Leonardtown Butterfly Trail”, along with several large murals in which butterflies are featured.
A couple of years ago, several gardener friends and I noticed a lack of native plants around town and thought it would be beneficial to bring them to the town flower beds. Nearly all of the plants in the beds were non-native ornamentals, thus providing little food or habitat for butterflies or other native insects and birds.
We met with the town administrator, Laschelle McKay, in January 2024 to begin planning a native plant demonstration garden at the Parkette, a small plot that’s adjacent to the square in downtown Leonardtown, near Social restaurant, and across the alley from New View Fiberworks gift shop. After watching a very helpful Wild Ones Chesapeake Bay presentation about how to establish a community native plant garden, I volunteered to be the project’s “Land Steward” in order to shepherd the project to completion.
Carrie Krier, of Butterfly Alley Native Plants, donated the services of a landscape designer to prepare a layout. The town’s contracted landscape company removed the existing Nandina and Spirea shrubs, along with the Liriope and mulch that were there. Several hydrangeas and bay laurel shrubs were left in place.
We worked over the course of three mornings to plant native shrubs and perennials in place of the plants that had been removed and completed the work in early October 2024. We received planning and planting assistance from several St. Mary’s County Garden Club members, EcoBay Landscape, Wild Ones Chesapeake Bay members, Friends of St. Clement’s Bay, and staff and students from Bay Montessori School. I went to the Parkette weekly until the end of November to water the new little plants, since the summer’s drought continued into the fall.
I have been pleased to see the emergence this spring of nearly every plant that was installed in the Parkette. Recently, we placed small plant ID signs in the beds, along with a larger sign explaining that the garden is part of an expanded Butterfly Trail concept for the town of Leonardtown. This newer vision of the Butterfly Trail is similar to the Pollinator Pathway model and Homegrown National Park, in which native plantings will be incorporated in flower beds at nearby businesses, schools, churches and neighborhoods, in a corridor from the Leonardtown Library to the town wharf.
My favorite aspect of the new plantings at the Parkette are the “soft landings” underneath three large trees. Planting shade tolerant native plants under a tree is a great first step for anyone who wants to begin adding native plants to their garden. As insect eggs hatch on the tree, the resulting caterpillars can drop into the plants below to find food and shelter. At the same time, the tree’s roots benefit from the plants’ being watered and don’t get damaged by mowing or excess mulching around the tree. The happily growing shade lovers at the Parkette are Packera aurea (Golden ragwort) – which showed off its cheerful yellow early blossoms in April; Aster divaricatus (White wood aster) and Carex flaccosperma (Blue wood sedge). All of them are low-growing and spread nicely.
Last October, we also installed pink muhly grass, purple coneflowers and native columbine in beds bordering a parking lot near the Parkette. Nearly all of those plants seem well established, and the columbines are blooming profusely!
To celebrate the relaunch of the Butterfly Trail and the new native plantings in the parkette, members of the Butterfly Trail Team and partner organizations participated in the town’s Blooming First Friday event on Friday, May 2. Representatives from Wild Ones Chesapeake Bay, the St. Mary’s County Garden Club, and University of Maryland Master Gardeners-St. Mary’s staffed an outreach table next to the Parkette which features a display that focused on “Milkweed for Monarchs”. Visitors to the display received information about the Butterfly Trail and how to support wildlife in home gardens by planting native plants. Visitors were also able to take home three varieties of stratified milkweed seeds to start their own milkweed at home.
One of the highlights of Blooming First Friday was the debut of “Molly the Monarch”, thanks to the creativity of assistant town administrator, Jeanine Harrington. You can follow the adventures of “Molly the Monarch” on her Facebook page.
Special thanks to chapter member Amy Henderson for writing this blog.