Suffolk’s latest butterfly garden, located near the playground area at Bennett’s Creek Park, attracted a lot of interest on the day of its opening, April 23.

The butterflies had not yet found the garden — full of flowers planted to give them places to lay eggs and gather nectar — but plenty of human visitors stopped by to see the pretty flowers and learn a bit about the project.

The garden, a joint project of Keep Suffolk Beautiful, the Suffolk Master Gardeners Association and Suffolk Parks and Recreation, with the help of Lancaster Farms, is nestled in a patch of grass along the park’s roadway near the playground.

“Butterflies are the No. 2 pollinator” of flowers and other plants in the area, said Wayne Jones, Suffolk’s litter control coordinator. “So the garden is kind of a symbol” of the need to build and protect habitats that are enticing to them.

Master Gardener Pam Courtney helped with the construction of the habitat, and she worked with Lancaster Farms to buy and plant the flowers and greenery that fill the bed.

She spoke to visitors as they looked at the flowers, explaining to them about how different plants attract different species of butterflies.

Master Gardener Deborah Cady was also on hand to share her expertise about butterflies and moths.

Cady raises 17 different species of butterflies in a butterfly garden at her home, and she is a board member of the Butterfly Society of Virginia.

She was instrumental in the design and construction of the Bennett’s Creek Garden, which includes milkweed, asters, field fennel and coreopsis.

While others looked at the garden, some visitors stopped by a table with two plastic containers, one of which contained large luna moth caterpillars. Cady described the life cycle of the moths and butterflies and corralled caterpillars as they climbed up the leafy twigs trying to make their escape.

With a sunny morning to welcome them to the park and showcase the new garden in its best light, visitors seemed to be enjoying the event.

“We have some in our yard,” Ola Lawrence of Churchland said of the butterfly-attracting plants. “I came out to look at the different flowers and see what they had.”