Monarch butterfly wings will flutter at Rimu Park

Radius Rimu Park resident Rachel Hind has kept a close eye on the caterpillars. Photo/Michael Cunningham

A Whangarei rest home is hoping its plans to increase the number of monarch butterflies will lift the spirits of their residents at the same time.

Radius Rimu Park Village has started work to inundate its gardens with swan plants and butterflies by digging out the front garden.

Activities co-ordinator Christina Wihongi said residents don't see a lot of monarch butterflies around.

"That's our goal - to bring butterfly life into the facility."

She has completed a course through the Monarch Butterfly Trust where she learnt the butterfly's life cycle, what it eats and doesn't eat, the best place for swan plants to grow and more.

Rimu Park resident Rachel Hind has closely documented the facility's first few butterflies. Photo/Michael Cunningham

Miss Wihongi said the rest home want to scatter the swan plant seeds soon, ready for summer.

"I also want to see if they'll grow indoors during the winter and when they shoot up, take them outside."

They have plans to have 500 swan plants around their facility - split between garden boxes around the outside of the deck and in the front garden, with a couple under the window of the project's most passionate resident, Rachel Hind.

Mrs Hind, who has lived at Rimu Park since November 2015, is a keen gardener and has kept a close eye on the facility's current 14 swan plants and subsequent monarch butterflies which have already hatched.

"I've always loved gardening and I had monarch butterflies in my own garden."

She found a chrysalis on the ground, put it in some cotton wool and once it hatched took it around to show the residents. She said the residents loved it.

Mrs Hind also put another chrysalis on a branch in a container and took it into the room of a resident who is bedridden, so they could watch it hatch.

Facilities manager Greg Parker said the rest home got the idea from one of the other Radius facilities in Palmerston North which put in some beehives to help increase the bee population.