You are at stop #29 on the Belmar Treasure Trail: our Butterfly Waystation. There are many stunning landscape gardens throughout Belmar, but the real beauty behind this group of plantings is two-fold. First, the garden is what is known as a “rain garden,” which means it was designed to reduce pollution in Silver Lake. A major cause of water pollution throughout the industrialized world comes from rainwater that picks up pet waste, fertilizers, road oils and other toxins as it runs across paved surfaces and winds up in waterways. This garden is designed to keep those kinds of invisible – and not so invisible – pollutants out of our lake. It was created by the Belmar Environmental Commission to divert polluted runoff from the road into a vegetative system. The second purpose, as you can probably tell by the lovely sign and bench, i ...