Conger Street Revitalization Butterfly Garden
In 2011, a one acre city lot was donated to Tori's Butterfly Garden Foundation, Inc to be used as a garden at 407 East Conger Street in Hartford City, Indiana . In the summer of 2012, ground was broke for the garden. This garden was built in a neighborhood amidst run down trailers and abandon homes. One of the mission of TBGF is to create gardens and green spaces in neighborhoods that are run down and to revitalize these areas of town.
The garden was built by over 50 volunteers, both young and old, lending their time and talents to help install fencing, level the ground, build raised vegetable beds, and to plant over 700 plants, bushes and trees. The front of the garden is home to many different varieties of plants and flowers including daylillies, zinneas, coneflowers, asters, rudibeckia, and many other native Indiana plants.
The garden has been certified as a monarch butterfly way station due to the planting of milkweeds and nectar plants that are needed for all stages of the monarchs life cycle. There is also an area designated for swallowtail butterflies with fennel and dill for their larvae to eat. Almost all of the plants in this garden are perennial plants which return each year. Several local business helped by making plant donations to this garden. Volunteers and neighbors to the the garden have helped maintain the property ever since.
The back of the garden is a vegetable and fruit garden. There are numerous raised beds which grow tomatoes, peppers, cucumber, green beans, squash, zucchini and strawberries throughout the summer. All of this produce is donated to the local food bank weekly throughout the growing season.
Taylor Whetzel sits with the produce being donated to the local food pantry which was grown at the Conger Street Garden. All of the produce grown here is donated to the Department of Children and Family Services.
In March of 2014, TBGF was finally able to purchase the adjacent lot to the property which was home to two old and run down trailers. This lot has been a terrible blight to the neighborhood for many years. This purchase and removal of the two trailers has greatly added to the revitalization of the neighborhood. It has made other property owners begin to remove other abandon homes from the street. This new property will allow for future plans and expansion of the garden.