My Butterfly Brain

As many of you know, my history with Pinder’s Nursery is a rich one. I met Terri Pinder in 2005, as a brand new transplant from western Massachusetts. She was the most enthusiastic person I had ever been in the same room with and she laughed at all my jokes and she loved Nature. There are nearly 20 years between us but we became fast friends.   She and Marvin and their three remarkable children became my Florida Family. I spent every holiday with them, attended school graduations, grandparents’ birthday parties, beach barbeques, and have received and given priceless advice through the years from the whole family. I have worked for them in some capacity since 2006. I was there the moment Marvin agreed to build the store structure you all know today, and I was one of the folks holding the scissors at the Chamber of Commerce event celebrating the opening of The Community Garden Center.   I helped plant the gorgeous Japanese Fern Tree in the center garden. I attended the first Bliss in the Garden, worked at some of the first festivals, and learned as I went- always having Terri’s and Marvin’s brains at my side, for the picking. Of all the discoveries I have made and all the places I have gone with and because of the Pinder’s, my very favorite was the trip I took, at 25 years old, to the FNGLA Floriculture field days event in Gainesville. This was back in 2006, and I went representing the nursery because all three of the Pinder kids were graduating at the same time. Ian was transitioning from elementary to middle, Kenleigh from middle to high, and Hilary had finished high school. I was a brand new employee, just beginning to bury her hands in the dirt and I was “it”. I drove my Chevy Cavalier to Gainesville after a half-day of work in the wholesale office and garden center (at the time the garden center was so new that I was able to work there using a walkie talkie placed on the counter with a note “Press button and call Kisti if you need assistance” – and I would run from the wholesale office down to the garden center- who remembers these days?!) The drive was a discovery in and of itself, as I had never been too far from the East coast of Florida. There is so much to tell of the trip, the characters, the glorious colors in the field trials and gardens, the volumes I learned- I filled nearly three quarters of a notebook with notes on the trials-, there were big bats and wine-loving scientists, and Kanapaha, and a cottage garden that went on forever and ever, but it’s too much for here. What I want to share is the part of that wonderful trip that most inspired me, and that was the first time I walked through a Butterfly Garden. The Butterfly Garden was what is now the Butterfly Rainforest at UF. It has evolved through the years, I am sure. I have not returned since that first time, which was exactly like the first time my three-year old nephew met Minnie Mouse at Disney World. I entered a dream, it seemed. So many flitting, twirling butterflies, a blast of humidity, green leaves and fronds and red and yellow flower heads at every turn, and the music of waterfalls and incline of natural bridges and soft sunlight. It was GLORIOUS. Imagine walking across a college campus that looks much like any other college campus and into a museum that looks like any other museum and then through a door and into…a rainforest full of butterflies! Bliss. That’s how I remember it anyway.  And, in spite of all my senses being overloaded, and my frustration over the fact that I could not operate the digital camera I had dropped and broken on the way out of the hotel that morning, I learned SO SO much!

Through the years working in The Community Garden Center, we have all helped so many of you discover the beauty and simplicity of Butterfly Gardening. Imagine coming home from a day at work, climbing out of your car and walking around to your yard and seeing butterflies at every turn- on your pentas, on your lantana, above your head, flitting from porterweed to nectar feeder and then lifting off and away. I know I am not alone when I say I am beyond inspired by both the perfection of that environment the wizards at UF created, and by the silence of mind that watching wildlife cycle and live amongst flowers, doing their thing so splendidly brings.   Those moments when I sit and watch with no goal but observation are the most relaxing.

With your help, we have come a long way from the walkie-talkie on the counter days…Marvin and the crew are building a Butterfly House! It is under construction now but will be in place by our Free Butterfly Gardening Workshop on April 18th. All of the plants will be labeled and you can have your own learning experience, ask us questions, be inspired, and perhaps create that silence of mind for yourself.