Smith-Gilbert Gardens

You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers! Please view our Scout Workshop offerings. Let Smith-Gilbert Gardens help your troop work towards these badge requirements in a private workshop. Please contact Nina Baldwin at nbaldwin@kennesaw-ga.gov for information and booking. ... See MoreSee Less

Smith-Gilbert Gardens

Have you noticed a large, bright yellow butterfly flitting about your garden or have you noticed them while driving about? This is one of our favorite migratory butterflies, the Cloudless Sulphur. The fall migration of Cloudless Sulphurs is the easiest to observe butterfly migration in the southeastern United States. Monarchs are migrating at the same time, but they are generally flying too high to be seen and are heading for Mexico and hence may miss the Southeast. Cloudless Sulphurs are headed south to Florida and their numbers overwintering there may rival the numbers of Monarchs in Mexico! Their Latin name is Phoebis sennae. Its genus name is derived from Phoebe the sister of Apollo, a god of Greek and Roman mythology. The specific epithet, sennae is for the genus Senna to which many of the cloudless sulphur's larval host plants belong. You may have seen Sickle Senna, as it’s sometimes called, growing along roadsides or open fields. It is in the bean family and it’s foliage looks fantastic in a perennial border and has attractive yellow flowers. However, it’s the seed pods that give this plant the common name of Sickle Senna because they look like sickles. The caterpillars of the Cloudless Sulphur have adapted to look like the seed pods making them hard to spot for predators. Cloudless Sulphur populations have diminished over the years because of loss of habitat and destroying of their host plant considered a weed. We have this plant along with caterpillars located in the pollinator garden where there are no weeds just host plants for somebody. ... See MoreSee Less

Smith-Gilbert Gardens

As you walk through the Gardens with your activity guide, be sure to see the sculpture that we installed during Art Blooms this year! They won’t be here much longer. KSU students’ Mary Beck Pinkston, Hannah Bumgarner and Mari Raj all have pieces in the LeDelle Jolley Event Lawn. Doug Pisik’s interactive wood sculpture is just outside the gift shop in the courtyard. We are thrilled to exhibit their work as part of our first Art Blooms! Stay tuned for artists in the next installation of Art Blooms in Spring 2022. ... See MoreSee Less