‘It’s showy and it’s beautiful.’ Catch this festival near LS before it flutters by

Summer is showoff season for some of Earth’s most popular, spectacular and ephemeral of creatures. And there’s no better venue than Powell Gardens to celebrate them. The Festival of Butterflies is center stage once again. From July 18 to Aug. 4, visitors have the opportunity to wonder and learn at the 175-acre public garden in Kingsville, Missouri, located around 20 miles from Lee’s Summit.

Every year, thousands of visitors watch the way nature ensures that the practical and beautiful pollinators’ work continues. As many as 10,000 people visit during the three weeks, according to marketing specialist Laina Burdette. After three decades, it’s been a pleasure to notice the adults who came to the festival as children now bringing their own children, she said.

For the second year, the festival will emphasize the butterflies of different cultures — Latin American, Polynesian and Celtic — one each week. And three Festival Nights are scheduled for Saturday evenings focusing on those three parts of the world through cuisine, dance and song.

Daytime visits frequently begin in the Conservatory, which resembles an enormous snow globe, only the snowflakes are replaced by fluttering pollinators, tropical butterflies, morphs and moths.

There, the “emergence chamber” displays the newest moths or butterflies drying their wings before flight. The Conservatory draws excitement with those kind of “wow moments,” Burdette said.

Also inside, the Garden Galleries highlight the journey of the striking Monarch butterfly, all part of an effort to educate and encourage ways to help the species thrive. Children especially enjoy the moth cave in the basement.

In the Science Exploratorium, microscopes and lab coats help children learn even more about the details of butterfly life, knowledge that demonstrates the insects are more than just pretty faces. A “Flutter Zone” offers story times, crafts and chalk art. The Stone Lion Puppets will appear twice to relate the story of a friendship between a timid caterpillar and a fearless ladybug.

Outside the visitor center, the Native Butterfly Habitat showcases Missouri natives and the flowers that attract them.

Burdette said her favorite experience during the festival is taking the path through the Butterfly Meadow, which has been seeded with native wildflowers of orange, blue, purple and other hues.

“It’s showy and it’s beautiful,” she said, noting the subdued milkweed and the bold Prairie Blazing Star.

But she didn’t want to leave out some prolific white day-bloomers.

“We have a massive planting of native lotuses in a pond,” she said. “The American lotus is uniquely pollinated solely by one particular kind of beetle.”

Three pond-side decks provide a perfect view.

A schedule and list of elements at the festival can be found at here, along with a map, dates and ticket requirements. Some events are ticketed and others come with the price of admission.

The festival is a “great bang for the buck,” Burdette said. “Not everyone has access to acres of this kind of thing.”

While there for the butterflies, visitors may also come across the eight life-size, fort-style playhouses that make up Fortopia, an imaginative outdoor exhibition. One fort, “The House that Stands on Chicken Feet,” was designed by preschoolers. Adult architects and artists had their dreams developed, as well. Fortopia runs through Sept. 2.

Coming up: Wildflower Week July 9-14, ballet dancers July 27 and Waterlily Wonders Aug. 6-18.