Beauty comes at a cost.

The Science Museum of Western Virginia moved about 30 varieties of plants into its future butterfly garden at Center in the Square on Friday, a major step in creating a livable habitat for the fluttering occupants to come.

"This is the first living organism to be introduced into the exhibit," said Derek Kellogg, the museum's lead animal care specialist.

"It's great to have everything coming together," he said, but it also heralds the start of a hectic schedule that involves giving the plants time to cycle pesticides out of their systems, acquiring necessary permits from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and shipping in butterfly pupae in time to have a lively population when the exhibit opens.

The plan is to have the butterfly garden ready for Center in the Square's May 18 grand reopening, museum spokesman Michael Hemphill said.

The science museum will charge separate admission for the butterfly garden - at present, prices are expected to be $4, members $2 - in order to help with the maintenance expense. The museum will also seek sponsorships for that purpose, Hemphill said.

Strict regulations

Letting the butterflies breed on their own is prohibited by USDA regulations, so the tropical plants brought in to provide nectar for the insects are varieties that discourage reproduction. To keep the populace robust, the museum will receive 300 new pupae every week at a cost of $1,000 a week.

The species are tropical and subtropical, which requires temperatures in the garden to stay at about 85 degrees during the day and 75 at night, Kellogg said. The garden will have its own heating and cooling system, as well as heat provided by 27 1,000-watt halide bulbs that had the garden at a sweltering temperature Friday morning. Construction dust still rose around the ferns, palms, Egyptian star flowers, Panama roses, ixora and lantana blooms.

Kellogg is working with regional orchid societies to choose orchids to add to the garden at a later time, Hemphill said.

Found on Center's fifth floor, the garden is accessed through a vestibule in the museum that works like an airlock, Kellogg said - the doors at each end can't be opened at the same time. Acquiring the USDA permit involves proving that no butterflies can escape from the garden.

This is important to the USDA because many of the butterflies are not native to the United States, and because butterflies are considered plant-eaters, Kellogg said.

The shipments will be brought into a small laboratory attached to the garden, where the pupae are hung from horizontal bars in a windowlike aperture that Kellogg called an emergence case. The pupae that don't live to become adults have to be disposed off using methods dictated by USDA regulations, he said.

Move starts this month

Kellogg was hired in November after working more than four years as chief entomologist for the Dancing Wings Butterfly Garden at the Strong museum in Rochester, N.Y. He said the Rochester butterfly garden had 1,800 square feet - about the same as the "Butterflies at the Bridge" exhibit at Natural Bridge - while the Roanoke museum's is close to 3,000 square feet.

Though the butterfly garden is the highest-profile feature of the renovated museum, there also will be five new galleries.

The museum occupies the fourth and fifth floors in Center in the Square's Campbell Avenue building. The fourth floor is finished, while the fifth is still undergoing renovations.

Hemphill said the museum will close its temporary location in Tanglewood Mall on March 15 and start having its new exhibits brought to Center "within a week or two following that."

Museum Executive Director Jim Rollings has said the nonprofit anticipates an annual operating budget of about $1.2 million.

Weather Journal

8 hours ago