Alycyn Culbertson is a true gardener, landscaper, conservationist, writer, and educator. She’s used to working hard and doing what some might call back-breaking work. Twenty-five years ago, a seemingly innocent book from the National Wildlife Federation led her into a lifetime adventure of gardening for wildlife.
She and her husband, Lee, in their efforts to have a property certified by the National Wildlife Federation as a Wildlife Habitat, dug and installed a pond and waterfall at their first home in Florida. They installed terraces of fantastic flower beds and ended up planting more than 300 plants to provide food and shelter for birds and butterflies.
Life took them out West, where they removed the grass on their property, planted seeds, and created meadows of native wildflowers around their home.
Their next move led Alycyn to become a Master Gardener in Arkansas, landscaping the new home, and joining both a local Blue Bird Society and a garden club. In the birding society, she cared for, monitored, and collected data on 30 bluebird boxes as seasons progressed. She led huge plant sales for her garden club. …Which led her to learn about and do something about the plight of our nation’s disappearing milkweed population and, consequentially, our nation’s disappearing population of monarch butteries. In 2017 her garden club received a national award for their efforts to help save monarchs.
Over the years, Alycyn has taken classes, attended workshops, and done a tremendous amount of reading to become knowledgeable about plants and wildlife. She rescues, raised, and released more than 1,000 monarchs. She serves on the leadership team of the Butterfly Gardens Club and as the Vice President of our FNPS chapter. She volunteers at the Fred Funk Butterfly Garden. She speaks at garden clubs, retirement homes, The Enrichment Academy, and Camp Villages. She is a true proponent of raising milkweeds to help save monarchs.
Alycyn’s home here in The Villages is on the FNPS Garden Tour on June 2. The garden is certified as a Monarch Waystation and boasts 42 different native plants, as well as Florida-friendly plants. This garden (newly landscaped and ever-changing, of course!) is on a pond and is a haven for birds, caterpillars, butterflies…and people.
Alycyn Culbertson attended college in Iowa in the 1980s and majored in accounting and business. Her 28-year career in federal law enforcement involved forensic accounting and financial investigation as well as extensive training in photography and public speaking. She retired in 2008. She is married to Lee Culbertson and has two children who live in Colorado and Missouri.
Alycyn has been an active gardener since 2000 when her backyard in Tarpon Springs was certified by the National Wildlife Federation as a habitat. She included many varieties of native plants, host plants, and nectar plants for butterflies and plants with nuts and berries to attract birds. She became a master gardener in 2015 and has been truly emersed in gardening since then.
After retiring, her photography business took off, and her collection includes a variety of scenery and wildlife from alligators in Florida to bull moose in the mountains of Wyoming, and a large array of butterflies and flowers. Her focus has been on butterflies over the past few years and the plants and flowers that attract butterflies. Her programs include many photos and videos of butterflies gathering nectar and of monarch butterflies making their chrysalis and emerging from their chrysalis. She has been on the leadership team of The Villages Butterfly Gardens Club since early 2018.
Alycyn’s book, LOOK WHAT HAPPENED WHILE I WAS SLEEPING, was published in late 2019. This is a children’s book, teaching the lifecycle of the monarch butterfly.
She also enjoys golf, biking, and Zumba. She can be spotted several nights a week dancing with her husband, Lee at one of the town squares in The Villages.
07-2022
You Tube: Alycyn's Butterfly Corner
