The Trailblazer

Hillsborough County's ELAPP Nature Preserves are a paradise for butterfly enthusiasts, and no one knows better than Bill Carlisle. Bill is the Prescribed Burn  Coordinator for Hillsborough County’s department of Conservation and Environmental Lands Management. A lifelong Riverview resident, he has a great sense of humor, and possesses the roughly hewn countenance that one can only acquire from decades of wildland firefighting and environmental lands management.  What else comes with that experience? In Bill's case, a multitude of excellent animal and plant pictures! In this article, I am going to cover several of the butterfly species he's documented in our Nature Preserves, as well as some of the host plants you can include in your garden to help support these incredible animals! Remember, a host plant is a plant that a specific butterfly species lays its eggs on and the caterpillars feed on. Long Tailed Skipper ( Urbanus proteus ) Skipper butterflies are often mistaken fo...

One of the best places in Hillsborough County to celebrate spring is also one of its best kept secrets: Eureka Springs.  Springtime at Eureka Springs Conservation Park – perhaps better referred to as a botanical garden – is a verdant paradise of blossoming flora. While walking through the park’s front entryway, you are transported to an oasis of beautiful plants, greenery, and peace. It's not merely a park; it's a sanctuary where time seems to slow, allowing guests to immerse themselves in the beauty of their surroundings. A large oak with staghorn fern, bromeliads, lichen, and other life growing upon it. Eureka Springs Conservation Park is possibly our most unique park. The 30-acre property was gifted to Hillsborough County by entrepreneur Albert Greenberg. After serving in the first World War, Greenberg travelled the world acquiring unique tropical plants and chose to settle them in Tampa.  In the 1930’s, Albert started Everglades Nursery and Aquatic Plants and bought what i...

Just last year, my partner and I were staring at a bare, sandy patch in our backyard. The earth had been graded high during construction, and grass stubbornly refused to grow there. The only thing holding back erosion was an increasingly expensive layer of pine straw. It's about time , I thought, to finally follow my own advice and plant some frogfruit. Frogfruit as seen from above. These specimens have their characteristic white and purple blooms. Photo by Jade Fortnash. I was first introduced to the plant Phyla nodiflora, better known as frogfruit, as a butterfly host plant. If you want Common Buckeye or White Peacock butterflies flitting around, tuck some frogfruit into your garden. However, the more I chatted with older gardeners, the more I heard a familiar refrain: "Oh, I used to play in meadows of that stuff as a kid! Haven't seen it in ages." These days, much of the arable land in Tampa Bay has been developed for agriculture or housing. Extraordinary quantitie...