Latest / In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson / Wings of Wonder: Inside Dothan's Butterfly House - TPR's In Focus - June 11, 2026

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Wings of Wonder: Inside Dothan's Butterfly House - TPR's In Focus - June 11, 2026 · In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson

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  Support comes from Troy University's Trojan Cafe,
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  offering handcrafted Starbucks beverages and a wide assortment of meal and snack options,
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  located on Troy University's Montgomery campus, across from the Rosa Parks Library and Museum.
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  From Troy Public Radio, this is In Focus and I'm Carolyn Hutcheson.
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  On the Alabama Garden Trail is Dothan Area Botanical Gardens. Today we visit with William
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  Holman, Executive Director for our Back to Nature series. The Wings of Wonder Butterfly House and
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  the adjacent Pollinator Garden are features that attract visitors while also serving a scientific
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  purpose. William, welcome back. Thank you very much, Carolyn. It's nice to be back.
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  William, it's summer and Dothan Area Botanical Gardens provides a wonderful respite.
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  Why is this the perfect time to visit? It's kind of our peak blooming period,
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  so there are a lot of things blooming in the garden, and if you've never been,
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  now is a great time to come and enjoy all the different things that are in bloom.
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  The news is about the Pollinator Garden. What is the Pollinator Garden?
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  It's a new addition to the garden, and it's situated out in front of our Butterfly House.
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  It's what we call our Wings of Wonder Butterfly House, and it's just a small area that is loaded
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  with pollinator plants, plants that attract bees and wasps and butterflies and all kinds of
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  pollinators. It's just an interesting and beautiful area because there's always something blooming in
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  the Pollinator Garden. There is concern about pollinators. What's the status? We always get
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  varying responses, but generally what we hear is that because of habitat loss, there are fewer and
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  fewer plants that attract pollinators. One example of that is the monarch that has to have a
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  particular plant. It has to have milkweed, so if we continue to lose large amounts of milkweed,
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  they're not going to have any way to lay their eggs. They can't just lay them on any plant. They
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  have to have a milkweed plant. That Pollinator Garden, by the way, is a monarch waste station,
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  which is kind of a designation. They're the butterflies that migrate from Canada all the
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  way down to Mexico, and they have to have milkweed all along the way. They'll lay their eggs, and of
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  course their eggs will become part of the next generation, but our area is designated a monarch
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  waste station because we have a certain amount of milkweed planted in this Pollinator Garden, and we
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  actually do some programs we did last fall where we tagged monarchs to release, and that's part of
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  how they study migration and studied the populations and that kind of thing are these tagged
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  monarchs, so hopefully we'll do that again. That is fascinating. Well, back to the pollination.
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  What are the scientists doing to actually get to the bottom of this question? They're mainly
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  encouraging people to plant native plants that are known to be good attractants to pollinators
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  and to not spray pesticides. Those are the two best things you can do, and you don't
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  have to have a big space. Even a nice pot on your patio that you have the right plants in
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  can benefit pollinators, so everybody can participate. In fact, in August we're going
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  to participate in a citizen science project, but it's called the Pollinator Census.
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  The Alabama Cooperative Extension System and other extension systems across the southeast are all
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  participating in this together, but they're trying to track and get numbers and determine
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  how pollinators are doing, and if you'll kind of watch our website, we'll post information as soon
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  as we get the dates set. We'll have what's known as a pollinator party where people come out,
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  they learn how to do it, and then we take them out into the garden, and they're all
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  given a station, and they count the number of pollinators over a 15-minute period that comes
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  to that plant. And so, as a normal citizen, you can help scientists and entomologists study
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  pollination and pollinators by turning in that information, and that's what we're going to do.
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  And your pollinator garden, you say, is right near the butterfly house. So, how many monarch
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  butterflies are in the butterfly house? It changes. Many butterflies don't have a very
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  long lifespan. A monarch does, but they're a little early for us right now. Most of our butterflies
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  we purchase, actually, from a butterfly farm, and believe it or not, there are farmers that this is
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  their crop. They raise butterflies, and ours actually come out of Michigan. But if you visit
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  the butterfly house, and I want to extend everybody an invitation, there's only a few of
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  these in the entire state of Alabama. Ours, we normally have between 400 and 500 live butterflies,
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  and they're native butterflies. These are butterflies that live here and will potentially
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  come to your backyard. So, it's a unique opportunity, and it's a beautiful habitat
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  because it's full of flowers. But you can see all the life stages in there. You can
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  see butterflies mating. You can see them lay eggs. You can see the caterpillars on the host
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  plants. So, it's very educational, and we actually do something many butterfly houses don't do,
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  is that we have a little sponge on a stick that we soak in sugar water. Since butterflies taste
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  with their feet, you can put that sponge right near its feet, and it'll hop up on your sponge,
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  and it's a great way for kids to get a close-up look at a butterfly without damaging its wings.
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  William, earlier you mentioned those beautiful orange monarch butterflies. How are they tagged
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  and tracked? A couple that studied butterflies, and they were saying, we've got to figure out
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  where they go. They knew monarchs migrated, but they just didn't know where they went,
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  and they said, we've got to come up with something that's not very heavy that we can attach to them
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  that we can track. And they tried all kinds of different things, and they finally found out that
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  the price sticker off a wine glass was the perfect thing, because it was light enough
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  to put on their wing, and it would stay. And what they would do, they would write on it. They would
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  say, if found, please call this number. So, people started calling in, and they had a map,
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  and they would put all these pins on a map every time somebody called. Finally, one day they said,
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  the phone calls stopped at the southern boundary of the United States, and they said, we know they
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  must keep going. So, they said, stupid us, we didn't write any tags in Spanish. So, they started writing
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  them in Spanish and started getting more and more calls, and they were able to track it down to a
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  particular area, and they went down there and started asking, have you seen these butterflies?
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  They go, yeah, they're in the next valley over. That's how they found that place, tagging those monarchs.
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  And, you know, the people that lived down there, they were very familiar with it. It's a cool thing.
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  Yeah, William, the monarchs migrate to the Sierra Madre mountain range in central Mexico.
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  How can your listeners find Dothan Area Botanical Gardens for their visit?
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  Well, we're easily found right off Highway 431. So, if you're traveling on 431, look for the big
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  sign. We have a big sign on 431 that says Dothan Area Botanical Gardens, and it's less than a mile
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  off the highway, and we're open seven days a week. So, you know, you can stop in almost any time,
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  but we're open from nine in the morning until five at night. The Butterfly House now has a little bit
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  different operating hours because it's seasonal. It's open from 10 to 4 and closes at lunch,
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  but it's open from now until the end of October. So, when it starts getting cold, we have to shut
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  it down. Please visit our website, and you can learn more about the garden and what all we're
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  doing. It's DABG.com. William, it's been great visiting with you and celebrating Dothan Area
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  Botanical Gardens. And by the way, hats off to the volunteers. Thanks for your interview. Well,
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  thank you. We are proud of our numbers. A couple of years ago, we've had visitors from 45 states
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  and about 25,000 visitors a year. So, we're proud of the folks that come and visit, and I want to
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  encourage everyone listening to this program to come visit as well. That was William Holman,
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  Executive Director of Dothan Area Botanical Gardens, joining us for our Back to Nature
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  series. More information about the acclaimed gardens can be found at the website, DABG.com.
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  Thanks for joining us for In Focus, which is a podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
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  I'm Carolyn Hutcheson, and this is listener-supported Troy Public Radio.