THE alleyways of Samson are set to be ‘butterflied’ after a local nature organisation piloted a greening program in the outer Fremantle suburb last month.
Community and nature not-for-profit WA Loves Nature held a planting session on May 25 to create a “trail” in a Samson laneway connecting butterfly habitat near Frederick Samson Park, simultaneously educating community on how to build their own butterfly-friendly gardens.
WA Loves Nature co-founder Lisa Edwards says the trail phenomenon is “a way to physically show people” how they can support local biodiversity like butterflies in their own backyards.
“It’s an easy way to get people excited, to think, ‘I’d love butterflies in my garden’, so they can come to the trail and we’ll have all of the plants they need to plant, but we also have a lot of back up information on our social media and website,” Ms Edwards said.
“We look at a range of ways to get the information out, but we love doing the trails, because that’s how we connect to people who maybe aren’t too excited about nature.”
• Councillor Ben Lawver helps out creating a ‘butterflied’ laneway. Photo supplied
Some of the “more boring” plants such as wattle, daisies, native peas, and grasses comprise butterfly-friendly habitat, not the “sexy wildflowers” which Ms Edwards hopes to proliferate around the suburb.
“[Many] of the laneways in Samson lead down to the really beautiful piece of bushland at Samson Park, and so by using the laneways and planting them up, we’re creating these wildlife corridors from the park spreading out into the suburbs,” she said.
“This is just a pilot in one laneway, and now we’ve done that successfully, we want to go back and work in future seasons to get a whole lot of butterfly trails in Samson Park.”
“Hyper local” plant species were selected for the trail, according to Ms Edwards, to support the full life cycle of butterflies which are native to Samson, as well as the wider ecosystems they’re part of.
“What we talk about to people is that you have to think about the whole of the butterfly’s life cycle, and that’s the same with so many insects if you want to support them..it’s not just the food plants for the adult butterflies, it might be the food that the caterpillars need which are different,” Ms Edwards said.
“A lot of people think that they are supporting butterflies in their gardens with wildflowers and native plants, but that’s a very small component of what they need in their life cycle, because a long part of their life, their caterpillars are eating the leaves of plants.
“Because, of course, it’s without all those caterpillars that can either grow into butterflies or moths, the birds would have a whole lot less to eat, so we would not only lose the butterflies, but the birds would start disappearing from our gardens.”
• Lisa Edwards (second from right) and the WA Loves Nature team.
Colourful art and bee hotels are also on the cards for future laneways, to encourage biodiversity while sitting pretty in the suburbs.
East Ward councillor Ben Lawver attended the trail event and says that while City-wide laneway transformation is slowly in the works, the Samson trail is a “great” example of the beautification of often-desolate locations around the City
“There’s a lot of positive outcomes from doing initiatives like this, where we’ve got residents who are passionate and laneways that look like they could use some love,” he said.
“A lot of the laneways in Fremantle are privately owned, so there’s different ownerships which is the trickiest part [of a City-wide trail program].
“Samson was a good one to start with because the City does own it, and I’m of a view that once we get one of these done and people see how nice it looks, then hopefully that will inspire them to do something similar in their own patches.”
More information about WA Loves Nature’s biodiversity trails is available on their website.
by KATHERINE KRAAYVANGER