Monarchs prefer to fly in open meadows, prairies, and wetlands and choose to lay their eggs on small milkweed plants found in fencerows, ditches, and pastures.

Here is a preliminary list of the some of the practices that could be adopted to help the monarchs reestablish numbers:

1) seed marginal lands, fallow lands, or set aside areas with common milkweed and butterfly weed (A. syriaca and A. tuberosa).

2) seed low areas and true wetlands with both common and swamp milkweeds (A. syriaca and A. incarnata).

3) grow milkweeds in gardens- if not common milkweeds because of a prejudice due to their reputation as weeds, then other milkweed species, such as the swamp milkweed, butterfly weed and tropical milkweed.

4) urge local (county) road crews to cut road margins once a year, either in late June or preferably toward the end of the season after the milkweed plants have seeded.

Milkweeds can be established by scattering seeds over areas that have been mowed and lightly disked or tilled as early in the spring as possible. To minimize competition with other species that will invade the seeded area, the sown area should be mowed close to the ground the next spring before growth starts. This practice will favor grasses and milkweeds and will minimize competition for light and nutrients.

If you love them, help them. We have to learn from what was not working in the past and do what we can now. ;)

“There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.”
R. Buckminster Fuller