We are a real "farm"- we just have tiny livestock! Our facility includes a USDA-certified containment room for exotic species and a separate, newly renovated insect rearing lab. We are undergoing our own exciting "metamorphosis" as we transition to a full insectarium, and will soon expand our hours and days of operation!
Our facility includes an outdoor flight house is mainly used to rear larger butterfly and moth species, but we also allow visitors to go in and enjoy it! The flight house and pollinator garden are open seasonally from May through October. Walking through our flight house, you'll find beautiful pollinator-friendly flowers and plants in bloom, as well as a variety of native butterflies. In October, our flight house morphs into a spider house where visitors can walk through fall blooms and see harmless spiders creating beautiful webs!
We also begin selling plants and flowers in the Spring! We offer a variety of annual and native plants that support pollinators, beneficials, and other invertebrates. Our plants are grown with good "bugs"- not "drugs" (chemical pesticides)!
Our facility, housed in a historic building in the Shelby Park neighborhood of Louisville, also includes a carefully curated gift shop. We feature unique products from American small businesses and fair-trade imports, including everything from butterfly jewelry and preserved insect specimens to garden supplies, home goods, books, and toys. We also offer seasonal flower and vegetable seeds, along with a large selection of native and annual potted plants that support butterflies, pollinators, and other beneficial insects.
The Idlewild team is a small but dedicated group, all united by their love and appreciation for arthropods. Established in 2015 by Louisville native Blair Leano Helvey, Idlewild raises a variety of butterfly and moth species for exhibitors like the Louisville Zoo and many others across the United States. Because part of our mission is to educate the public about how incredibly important invertebrates are, we have been welcoming curious visitors for over a decade. Soon, however, we will undergo yet another transformation and become even more accessible to the public!
Idlewild is owned and operated under the parent company of Entomology Solutions, LLC., founded by Leano Helvey in 2009, which specializes in helping commercial growers, greenhouses, and nurseries implement biological pest control as an alternative to chemical insecticides. Leano Helvey received her B.S. in Agriculture with an emphasis in Entomology from the University of Kentucky, College of Agriculture, where she also worked as an insect physiology lab technician and learned to raise insects. However, her fascination with insects really began when she was a little girl exploring her backyard.
