Roof Deck Gardens & Aviary

Visitors to the Garden – 4

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Visitors to the Garden – 4 Once I realized that the common rue was a favourite food plant for the swallowtail I started cultivating groups of the plant hoping that the butterflies would realize what I was up to and lay their eggs on the plants. If you look carefully you will find seven larvae all fast at work eating the leaves.

Introduction for Roof Deck Gardens & Aviary

Welcome to the ever changing and endlessly fascinating world of Dar Balmira’s roof deck! These photos give you a sense of how this small rectangular space, one of thousands of interconnected roof decks inside the Medina, has become a unique oasis of nature. Some of the animals live year round on the roof deck while others, mostly winged creatures such as butterflies, bees, and other insects somehow find our flowering bit of paradise and arrive in ever greater variety and numbers year after year to feed on the nectar, pollen, and leaves of the plants we cultivate. The closest natural areas are at least a kilometer away from Dar Balmira; but even they are mostly cultivated fields with human habitations that have sheep and other farm animals.  As you will read below some butterflies are now actually breeding on the roof deck since I started cultivating the right plant food sources for their caterpillars.