Skip to content
The Upside
Link copied to clipboard

Flower show reminds us to help out butterflies

The annual Philadelphia Flower Show draws thousands to the city every year including at least one butterfly.

Sierra Nicholls of AirPlay Entertainment dances around the 2020 Philadelphia Flower Show inside the Pennsylvania Convention Center on its opening day.
Sierra Nicholls of AirPlay Entertainment dances around the 2020 Philadelphia Flower Show inside the Pennsylvania Convention Center on its opening day.Read moreHEATHER KHALIFA / Staff Photographer

Butterflies and flowers go together like coffee and cream.

At the 2020 Philadelphia Flower Show, performers with AirPlay Entertainment, a circus and variety entertainment company based at the Philadelphia School of Circus Arts, were on hand for the show’s nine-day run. At least one was dressed as a Monarch butterfly.

The species’ population has declined in the last 20 years, a woeful result of pesticide use, encroaching development on their natural habitats, and global climate change.

Still, there are ways that backyard gardeners can help butterflies during their approximate 2,000-mile migration from the United States and Canada to central Mexican forests. Among the easiest: Planting native milkweed and wildflowers, which can thrive in large and small gardens — even pots. Just be sure the plants have not been treated with with pesticides, insecticides, or neonicotinoids.