Monarch Garden Perfect Stop Before or After Jane Long Festival!

monarchs0By Brenda Beust Smith
Whether you’re coming via ferry or the Jane Long Highway (87) to the big Jane Long Festival Fri.-Sat., Oct. 14-15, be sure to make a stop at the Bolivar Monarch Garden created by Keep Bolivar Beautiful & Beach Bloomers Garden Club at the Joe Faggard Community Building pavilion. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many butterflies together working in such compact pocket gardens as volunteers have created here. The collection of plants is perfect for the Bolivar and other coastal gardens. Bolivar is an International Flyway and, as such, has long been a favorite destination for serious birdwatchers and butterfly enthusiasts who arrive in spring and fall to observe and count the myriads of migrating species passing over.

To help you recognize Monarch Garden flowers for future purchases for your own yard, here are a few of the pictures I was unable to shoot before my deadline for the Jane Long Festival/Monarch Garden article that ran last week in our Lazy Gardener & Friends Houston Garden Newsletter (click image for larger view).

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Volunteer Ange Buscheme Scheibel reports they have seen numerous generations of Monarch caterpillars over the summer on their collection of butterflyweeds, which includes the popular red/yellow/orange imported “tropical” butterflyweed as well as numerous native ones, such as swamp and green Asclepias. Collections of butterfly-attractors include salvias, porterweed, hamelia (hummingbird plant) and cupheas.

Many of these are still in full bloom, including absolutely gorgeous zinnias, which proved to be real showpieces of the garden. The best part of these, Ange notes, is that volunteers just toss deadheads back into the garden, triggering even more sprouting plants.

The colorful Monarch Garden will be like icing on the cake for visitors to the now-two-day (!!!) 2016 Jane Long Festival at historic Fort Travis Seashore Park on Bolivar Peninsula (near the Bolivar Ferry Landing, across Jane Long Highway/87 from the towering Bolivar Lighthouse).

The family-oriented free festival ground opens Friday, October 14, at 4 pm when Texas History Re-enactors are setting up for their Saturday replays of momentous Republic of Texas conflicts.

• Friday night’s music starts at 6 with a fireworks display following around 7 (dark).

• Saturday’s full schedule of fun also includes the “Jane Long: A Woman for All Centuries” play, myriads of booths & activities, food, tours of Fort Travis’s bunkers and cannon firings. Fort Travis is, without a doubt, one of Texas’ most picturesque festival sites, with its incredible sweeping views of shore birds, Bolivar Lighthouse, the Gulf of Mexico, Galveston Bay, Galveston Island, fishing, shrimping and sailing boats and huge freighters and cruise ships passing by.

Details: www.janelongfestival.org.

(PS. In the great “Jane Long: A Woman for All Centuries” play, newly-revised by Linda Elissalde, I get to portray the rather rebellious wife of Jean Lafitte’s first lieutenant pirate who gets kicked out of Jane Long’s camp for cussing!)

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3 Responses to “Monarch Garden Perfect Stop Before or After Jane Long Festival!”

  1. Brenda B. Smith says:

    Also, forgot to add:

    1. the black-eyed Susans above are Bolivar native plants, as are the lantana and gaillardia (Indian blankets) which were (legally!) transplanted from area sites to these gardens. They make great landscape plantings as do native crinums (Texas swamp lilies), giant white spider lilies (Hymenocallis), coral bean, bluebells, pink evening primroses and so many other of our wonderful wildflowers,

    2. Another mea culpa, I misspelled Ange Busceme Scheibe’s name. So sorry!

  2. Brenda B. Smith says:

    Bad BAD BrendaBS! (Have to do that since so many Brendas on the peninsula!)

    I misidentified the picture above marked “Cosmos.” Those are zinnias!

    Cosmos are growing right next to zinnias in the eastern side, parking lot adjacent pocket gardens.

    Mea culpa.

  3. Linda C. Elissalde says:

    Dear Brenda,

    What a beautiful article! I will add a visit to the Monarch Garden to my list. By,the by, you are a fearsome Mary Crow Campbell!!!

    Thank you.
    Linda C. Elissalde

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