Butterfly House and Gardens

Inside Peck Farm's Butterfly House and Garden

If you have a garden and don’t want to wait forever until that butterfly lands three inches from you, or if you have no garden at all, there are alternatives. A few spots in Illinois have butterfly houses (enclosures) where there are so many varieties hovering overhead, they might actually fly smack into you.  

When we arrived at Peck’s Butterfly House to see the exhibit, it had just rained and we had to wait until the butterflies wings dried out before they opened the doors. As a result there wasn’t as many as usual, but enough to enjoy the habitat as the butterflies landed on flowers gulping down the nectar of plants designed specifically for attracting butterflies. 

This place didn’t supply the weedy plant life that butterflies crave and as I previously mentioned in the last blog. You won’t find milkweed, thistle or crab grass, that’s for sure. The butterflies bed and boarding are so attractively laid out, I had more fun looking at the flowers--mostly annuals. Note: This display is only open until end of September. 

One other enclosed butterfly house where guests can mingle as you meander down scented and flowerly paths is at Brookfield Zoo. A permanent exhibit can be found at Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Lincoln Park. There are a few birds added in at that one also. I haven’t been to the last two mentioned—maybe later.