AN AERIAL ACT

AN IPSWICH GARDENER TAKES BUTTERFLIES UNDER HER WING.

- Tovah Martin

KATIE BANKS HONE LOVED HER LOCATION WHEN her family moved into a midcentury Cape on the Ipswich River in 2011. Although the home sits on only one-third of an acre, it boasts 91 feet of scenic river frontage. But what didn’t thrill Hone was the lawn. An ardent gardener who previously spent a dozen years as an aquarist at New England Aquarium before becoming a stay-at-home mom, Hone is keen on all creatures great and small. The limited resources for wildlife in her yard were getting her down.

It didn’t take long for Hone to swing into action and reverse the ratio of grass to other plant life in her yard. The following spring, she applied for and received a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service grant to add rain gardens and create native landscaping. Local regulations required that trees and shrubs could not be removed from the property without special permit, but her workaround was to add to the smorgasbord onsite and beef up the landscape with natives.