Monarchs, swallowtails — and people — find tranquility in this central Hamilton garden

If, sometime before the frosts knock area gardens down, you happen to be downbound on the Claremont Access, just where it becomes Victoria Avenue South, see if you can glance to your left at Hunter Street.

The gardens around the house on the corner are ablaze with the scarlets, flame-like oranges and royal purples of hundreds of zinnia flowers. And as you pass by, you might notice an odd, abstract-sculpture-like structure - a garden trellis on hallucinogenics - reaching high above the beds and borders.

And then ... you look away to negotiate the traffic as Main Street East approaches. A flash of colour amid the concrete and asphalt of city streets, soon forgotten. What a shame.

The downtown-bound traffic passes by Kitchi Memengwaa (the Great Butterfly) - Hamilton's Urban Ojibwa Monarch Conservatory. For those willing to circle around a few blocks to reach the dead end of Hunter Street East (it resumes on the other side of Victoria), this is a lovely garden that is part of a couple's spiritual and environmental journey.

Carmen Orlandis is originally from Barcelona; she came here in 1981. Husband Edawin Lefrancois is Ojibway, originally from Lake Nipigon. He was in the publishing business until he retired; they met 30 years ago at a book launch. Carmen has an ancient Spanish title of baroness. Edawin says that makes him the only Ojibwa baron in the country."

In late 2012, they bought the house, a former detention centre for youth, and by the following spring had started clearing the overgrown, weed-infested grounds that wrap around the corner property.

The first thing Carmen planted was rue, a herb also known as herb of grace," that has medicinal and mythological properties in several religions and across much of Europe. It's also a host plant for at least three varieties of swallowtail butterfly.

I'll get back to the garden in a moment. But first a number: 257. That's how many Monarch butterflies Carmen and Edawin raised this summer from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly - and then, of course, released. Four of the developing Monarchs didn't make it. By any standard, that's an amazing success rate. Carmen also raises Swallowtail butterflies: Their eggs are so small that Carmen can only find them by watching where the parent butterfly lays its eggs.

This is their mission, their calling. The garden is part of a journey of spiritual growth. The wooden kind-of-like-a-trellis structure, painted orange and yellow, is in honour of the lost children of the residential schools. The structure contains the outline of a teepee - a shelter. Other parts of it reach towards the sky and the Creator. It's kind of abstract," Carmen says, but they like it. So they should: it seems a very natural part of a garden that contains two spiral gardens - once circling left, the other circling right - that is an Indigenous form of meditative space, also reminiscent of European labyrinths.

The garden along the side of the house also contains a medicine wheel, which is aligned to the points of the compass. Violets grow along the sidewalk edge, morning glories and moonflowers (datura) and zinnias and swamp milkweed are spaced throughout. (They cut developing seedpods off the datura, a.k.a. jimsonweed, because of common misinformation among teenagers that the seeds are hallucinogenic. The seeds are actually toxic and commonly cause arrhythmia if eaten.) Amaranth and mullein grow where last year's seeds fell.

I've seen people praying by the medicine wheel," says Carmen, who greets almost every passerby by name and some with a hug. I know everybody around here," she says.

The spirals, the medicine wheel, every individual bed in the side garden - is structured with softball-sized rocks. Edawin (his Ojibway name means both sides" or coming and going") collected every one. I'm taking my land back one stone at a time," he says with a grin.

Edawin says they grow sweetgrass, sage and cedar - three of the four sacred medicinal plants. Tobacco is the fourth but they don't grow that because it brings other pests into the garden. They do grow Buffalo sage, which is the sacred sage that is dried, bundled and used in smudging ceremonies. It's native to the Southwestern U.S. and Mexico and Carmen brings it indoors for the winter.

The front garden is that joyous mix of zinnias of many sizes and even more colours. The couple lost two trees - a spruce and a maple - to disease, so the zinnias went into the now sun-drenched space last year. The garden has become an insect magnet. I've seen at least 12 species of bees, some I've never seen before," Edawin says.

There are more milkweeds, both common and swamp varieties and Carmen is looking forward to growing the attractive butterfly milkweed next year. Asters and roses, Michaelmas daisies and goldenrod mingle to create a mass of assorted colour.

Carmen says this is the time of year to think about hosting Monarch butterflies next year. Milkweed seeds have to freeze before they will germinate, so she says to sow seeds around Halloween. Carmen prepares a part of a bed by clearing it, raking it smooth, and scattering milkweed seeds onto the soil. A very thin layer of soil goes on top, and the bed is left for winter to prepare the seeds for spring germination. Otherwise you have to go through the rigmarole of putting the seeds in the freezer for six weeks and then sowing them," she says.

At the end of the visit, Carmen offers a bunch of zinnias to take home, a beautifully scented rose, seeds for all three types of milkweed and the promise of an invitation to a solstice smudging ritual in December. Here is a garden - and its makers - that are all about giving and sharing.

Rob Howard lives and gardens in Hamilton. He's a garden writer, speaker and garden coach. You can reach him at gardenwriterrob@gmail.com or on Facebook at Rob Howard: Garden Writer.