Rebuild The Monarchy!

Today we planted our monarch plants at RiverEdge Nature Center. Originally, we had hoped to plant a "teaching garden". However RiverEdge had recently disturbed soil while putting in wiring for an outdoor classroom. They needed our plants to cover the soil disturbance instead. And isn't that the heart of a Silver Award Project? Identify and meet a need?

Monarch Butterflies. A beautiful sight. A symbol of hope and change. Who wouldn’t be curious about such a delicate creature? Who wouldn’t want to help the monarchs?

A fema le monarch landed on a milkweed plant. Then she laid some eggs. She laid them on the underside of the leaves to protect them from potential predators and dangerous weather.  When the eggs hatch, caterpillars emerge. They eat their eggshell for food first. Then they depend on milkweed to keep them alive. monarch caterpillars only eat milkweed. Most monarch caterpillars begin their chrysalis stage on the milkweed plant or very close to it. After about a day after emerging from the chrysalis, monarchs begin to fly around to gather nectar.

Monarch butterflies are pollinators. They pollinate many different plants. Without the monarchs, we would be without a lot of crops like tomatoes and melons. The whole food chain would be messed up without monarchs.

The monarch population used to be up in the billions. But in the last two decades, the monarch population has declined by 90 percent. Populations have been changing frequently in many species of animals. But the monarch population has been decreasing at a constant rate. This should raise quite a few red flags.      Why has there been such a decline in the monarch population? Mostly, it’s due to the decline in milkweed. When droughts occur in the south, they take out a good portion of the plants. Some pesticides used for farming kill milkweed. Thus, taking away food from monarch caterpillars, room to lay eggs, and safe places for the chrysalis process. The monarchs are dying.

  Native Plant Monarch Waystation For our monarch butterfly planting, we began with a pre-planned monarch garden available from Prairie Nursery . It was designed for a space measuring 50 square feet. We then organized the plants by bloom time and added a few plants to the plan: MILKWEED (host plants for monarch caterpillars) : 3 Butterflyweed for Clay -- blooms June-August 3 Red/Rose Milkweed -- blooms June-July *4 Purple Milkweed --blooms June-July (added to plan. considered endangered in Wisconsin. ) Nectar plants for monarch butterflies: *ANNUALS/BIENNIALS: (added to plan to fill in the gaps until the perennials really start blooming) 1 Anise (Lavender) Hyssop -- (blooms June/July-September) 1 Black-Eyed Susan -- (blooms June-Sept) PERENNIALS: (will return year after year from roots) *1 Downy/Prairie Phlox (blooms May-June) -- added to plan, since monarchs begin arriving in Wisconsin mid-May  3 Pale Purple Coneflower (blooms June-July) 3 Purple Coneflower