The expansive Sanjeevaiah Park has hordes of visitors — love birds, feathered birds, gawking boys and vendors, all right. But, what has been attracting swarms of butterflies is a small garden on the opposite side.
An amazing variety of butterflies have made their home in the near one-acre patch of land cleared out by the GHMC in the last one month or so for its butterfly garden. The site, which was hitherto occupied by garbage and used for cleaning the sweeping machines, has been transformed and how.
Quick work
It now has a colourful range of shrubs, creepers and trees with flowers and dancing on them incessantly in their brilliant hues are the butterflies with each variety sticking to a particular plant or flower of their choice!
“We just cleared the area and put the plant-specific butterflies and in 15 days the butterflies started coming,” says a delighted North Zone Commissioner S. Harikrishna.
He saw such a garden in a resort in Kerala, trawled the Internet for information on plants, confabulated with his horticulture staff and began working on the garden two- and-a-half months ago.
“Our horticulture staff also visited the zoo park which has a similar facility. But, even I was amazed at how quickly our garden attracted the butterflies,” he laughs.
Numbers growing
“The butterflies started as soon the flowering began. We have counted 20-25 varieties of butterflies and expect the count to touch 40,” says C.V. Bhagyalakshmi, Assistant Director, Horticulture wing.
The municipal corporation has not yet publicised the park and hence did not put up a board. It is still mulling the options of regulating the entry lest it disturbs the butterflies and to protect the flowering plants too.
