News > Rural Lifestyle > Spread Your Wings to the UT Arboretum Butterfly Festival

Spread Your Wings to the UT Arboretum Butterfly Festival

Sep 01, 2025

Butterflies on orange flowers
For butterfly lovers, you’re in luck. The 10th Annual University of Tennessee Arboretum Butterfly Festival is around the corner.

The festival is scheduled this year for Sept. 6 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. (ET) in Oak Ridge at 901 South Illinois Ave. Gates open at 9:30 a.m. with admission only $5 per car. No pets or butterfly nets are allowed.

While there won’t be a mass butterfly release, the event is an educational initiative to provide opportunities for the public to learn from the UT Insect Zoo, visit two butterfly tents, listen to lectures, and allow kids to participate in art activities.

Lectures will include entomology, plant pathology, meeting baby butterflies and the fall bird migration in East Tennessee.

Each family will take home a free pollinator plant provided by Tennessee Naturescapes while the supplies last at the festival. Tennessee Naturescapes will also be at their booth selling the plants. Food trucks, honey and dulcimer music will also be available at the festival for the day.

Have questions?
Reach out to Michelle Campanis, UT Arboretum Education Coordinator, by email at: mcampani@tennessee.edu or by phone at 865-483-7277.
 

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