(Photo: Josephine Keeny, second from left, with other winners in the 2011 Green Source DFW Environmental Leadership Awards)     

April 9, 2012   

An Arlington volunteer with a green thumb, now has a green award to go with it.

Josephine Keeney was recently selected as winner of the 2012 Green Source Environmental Leadership Awards Volunteer Award. 

The retired bridal shop owner has lived in Arlington since 1967 and says she has always loved plants. That love has led her to become a Master Naturalist with the Cross Timbers chapter, a member of the Native Plant Society, Arlington Conservation Council and the Arlington Organic Garden Club. She even volunteers every week at Molly Hollar Wildscape and once a month at O.S. Gray Natural Area.

Along with her award, the Memnosyne Foundation, which publishes Green Source DFW and sponsored the awards, provided a $250 grant to the organization of Keeney's choice. Keeney says she will be putting that money toward new arbors to replace three wooden ones currently falling apart in the Butterfly Garden at at the Fielder House Historical Museum in Arlington.

“There is an enclosed garden that was called the Children's garden, and it was tended for many years by different garden clubs, including the Arlington Organic Gardening club,” Keeney explains. “However, the volunteers that once tended it were not able to do it any longer and it had fallen into disrepair, so when they asked for help I volunteered to do it together with two other friends. We started in the fall of 2008 so it has been five years.”

Keeney began the garden herself and explains her motivations for making the butterfly garden her cause of choice.

“The motivation for starting the Native Plant Butterfly garden was my love of Texas Native plants and butterflies. The garden has been transformed with the help of volunteers and it is now a beautiful home for butterflies.”

The garden is also registered as a Monarch Way Station with the butterflies usually arriving in April and staying until late in the year.

“My goals are to replace the arbors and continue to make the garden more complete and beautiful every year,” she explains. “This year we plan to label all of the plant species with markers indicating their common and scientific names. We will also make a map indicating which butterfly each plant feeds and have it available for self guided tours.”

Other highlights of the Butterfly Garden include the larval food area, which is enclosed by a picket fence and arbors within the garden itself and, it’s where the butterflies deposit their eggs too.

Other plants in the garden include a wide array of Texas native plants, about 95 species in fact.

“We try to provide all the larval food and nectar plants that the North Central Texas butterflies need,” Keeney says.

Keeney works at the garden every Monday and visitors are welcome to come by and help or just take a tour.

“When I am able to have the time for it I have dedicated myself to the propagation and conservation of Texas native plants in order to beautify our landscapes and save water,” Keeney said.

For more information on the Butterfly Garden visit www.historicalarlington.org or contact Geraldine Mills at Fielder House Museum, 817-460-4001.

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