Denise Swaby and her grandchildren joined hundreds of visitors who took a different sort of garden tour Sunday on the outskirts of Graton.
Swaby, a Santa Rosan, stood by as 5-year-old twins Simon and Caleb Swaby-Pierce peered through microscopes at insect specimens. The children later spotted butterfly eggs attached to a green-leafed vine and stood quietly by as a yellow-and-black tiger swallowtail butterfly fluttered beside an orchard of old Gravensteins.
"It's great for kids to come out and see all this," Swaby said.
On Sunday, the Hallberg Butterfly Garden held its annual open gardens celebration. The free event drew a crowd estimated at well over 1,000 people to view birds, bees and butterflies, as well as to walk through an ecological preserve surrounded by orchards and vineyards.
One of the highlights for volunteers is seeing visitors' "eyes open up," said Don Mahoney, board president of the nonprofit group that oversees the 9-acre garden. Mahoney also serves as curator of the San Francisco Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park's Strybing Arboretum.
The force behind the gardens remains 95-year-old Louise Hallberg, who has lived virtually her entire life on the property. Her parents operated a farm that grew apples and vegetables and raised cattle.
And nearly nine decades ago, Hallberg's mother planted on the property Dutchman's pipe, or pipevine, the only plant the pipevine swallowtail will lay its eggs upon. Today, the vine with green, spade-shaped leaves has taken over much of a shaded slope below the restored family farmhouse. Mahoney pointed occasionally Sunday afternoon to a blue male pipevine swallowtail darting in the sunlight above the greenery.
In 1990, Hallberg contacted the Strybing Arboretum to learn about plants that attract butterflies. That led to the creation of the butterfly garden. In 1997, Hallberg, Mahoney and others founded the nonprofit group to run the garden and provide the volunteers that give regular tours to both schoolchildren and adults.
Hallberg admitted she first knew little about butterflies, but she felt she should provide a haven for them and other creatures. Over the years, that conviction has been strengthened as she has watched the paving of much land around Santa Rosa and the conversion of many farmlands to vineyards in Sonoma County.
"We need a natural place for the wildlife," she said.
By Sunday afternoon, some of the 40-plus volunteers had counted 15 different species of butterflies and 20 species of birds in the garden.
On hand Sunday was Bob Cucina of Graton, who's been giving tours to schoolchildren there for 15 years. He said he's involved partly because he enjoys spending time with Hallberg.
But he also takes pleasure in seeing how much children grasp from the tour about being good stewards of the land. He recalled once hearing a young girl tell her mother at the end of a tour, "Mommy, mommy, don't spray the garden anymore. It kills the butterflies."
You can reach Staff Writer Robert Digitale at 521-5285 or robert.digitale@pressdemocrat.com
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