09/12/2026
Fall is on the way and as harvest season is upon us, we’re taking a closer look at some of the insects and other wildlife that have made the garden their home. These photos show oleander aphids clustered along plant stems, an orb-weaver spider capturing its prey, a swallowtail butterfly visiting our flowers, a bumble bee foraging on a zinnia, and a pair of mating differential grasshoppers. 🦋🪰🦗🦟🐞🕷️
Sometimes the ingredients we grow becomes food for someone else before we can bring in the harvest. Aphids and grasshoppers like these shown can cause significant plant damage if not kept in check. Spiders help control insect populations and both native and non-native bees (like our Italian honeybees) and butterflies provide important pollination services. Seeing all of these organisms together gives us an opportunity to observe the ecological relationships that are happening alongside food production in this urban garden. If you’re walking through the garden this week, watch out for the webs! 🕸️ 🕷️🕸️
We are intentionally creating and maintaining habitat within the UIC Nutrition Teaching Garden by growing a diversity of flowering plants, limiting unnecessary pesticide use, providing water and shelter, and leaving some areas a little less tidy so insects and other wildlife have places to feed, reproduce, and overwinter.
This year is our 10th garden season, and those strategic efforts helped the garden earn recognition as a Certified Butterfly Garden, Certified Wildlife Habitat, and Certified Firefly Habitat. We’re proud to have these certifications, and happy to see the biodiversity they represent showing up in the garden.
Photo credits: Lab Manager Emily & Chef Renea
