Please take a second to imagine millions of monarch butterflies, just like the ones in your yard, or the ones in your neighbors' yards, or ALL the yards in your city — they are starting a breathtaking journey, flying up to 2,000 miles to the mountainous regions of Mexico. They have started flying to a destination that is encoded in their DNA. Just like millions of other butterflies, these delicate fliers, are facing the fact that 80% of them will die on the journey.
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Check PriceThe next sixty days could be a matter of life or death. Most gardeners are thinking of fall cleanup and winterizing. However, monarchs are reliant on your garden and are in need of specific resources that you can provide. A single thoughtless garden decision could remove a fuel stop, saving hundreds of lives.
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Mistake #1: Don’t Deadhead And Cut Back Your Fall Flowers
Do you want to cut the seed heads off? Don't! These seed heads are survival kits for the monarchs. Asters, goldenrods, coneflowers, and sunflowers produce late blooms that have nectar rich in the sugars that the migrating monarchs need for their long flights. The bird feeding seeds are also really important as those birds will have a big impact on controlling pest problems in your garden all winter. If you leave these plants up until late November you are creating a fueling station for the migrating monarchs that operates long after you have gone inside.
Mistake number 2: Applying Pesticides and Herbicides in the Fall
Spraying your yard to kill weeds or aphids could kill monarch butterflies and their caterpillars. Monarchs absorb poisons through their feet, wings, and feeding tubes. Even organic sprays are toxic and can destroy a monarch's navigational system or make them too weak to get to their destination. From August to October, skip chemical treatments and pesticides and allow the natural predators and beneficial insects control the pests.
Mistake Number 3: Cleaning Up What Looks Untidy on Milkweed
When milkweed goes to seed it may not look attractive, but inside those fluffy pods are future monarch nurseries. If you cut milkweed down during the growing season you remove future habitat for monarchs as well as the seeds that can grow additional waystation plants. Milkweed should be cut back to 6 inches after the first hard frost. These seed pods can be scattered in bare areas of your yard for a natural expansion of monarch habitat.
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Mistake #4: Putting In Non-Native 'Butterfly' Flowers
While garden centers sell pretty flowers that are labeled as butterfly attractors, many of them end up being empty calories for butterflies instead of power food. Pentas, lantana, and butterfly bush are beautiful, but they won't have the complex sugars and nutrients that native asters and goldenrod offer. Instead, load up on native fall bloomers! They have co-evolved with monarchs for thousands of years and provide just what these travelers need.
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Don't remove all the leaves from your yard! Leaf piles are essential for butterflies and moths to lay their eggs and chrysalises. Many native species of butterflies and moths hide under the leaves in their pupal stage. They will become important spring pollinators. Natural leaf accumulations under shrubs and trees can be left alone while the rest of your raked yard can be cleared of leaves that will smother grass.
Mistake #6: Mowing of Right-of-Ways and Wild Areas
Even though that 'weedy' patch by the fence looks unkempt, it may be feeding more monarchs than your well-kept flower beds. Wild asters, goldenrod, and late-blooming wildflowers are important food sources for the butterflies. Before mowing any wild area from August to October, please walk through the area and try to see what is growing there. You may find the most valuable monarch habitat in your whole yard!
Mistake #7: Abandoning 'Failed' Gardens
Your drought-stressed and unattractive late-season flowers are what monarchs crave! That almost dead zinnia patch? It is producing concentrated nectar. Those unattractive marigolds? They're still feeding our pollinators. Please try to resist the urge to pull 'finished' annuals until the first frost. What looks awful to the human eye often provides the richest fuel for travelling butterflies.
Judging by how nature works, Monarch butterflies impressively utilize their memory, the position of the sun, and Earth's magnetic poles, but no individual butterfly has completed the migration journey, showing extreme confidence in their ability guiding them to the finish line. While this may not sound plausible, putting in a monarch butterfly fuel stop could make the impossible possible. These adaptations might cost you a few dollars, but could potentially create borders alive with a flourishing population of monarch butterflies, instead of having barren borders in your area.
Try not to tidy up your garden this fall. There is a miracle occurring right outside your door. Monarchs today carry the future of their species, and with your help, they will make it.
/*Give it a little space and let it feed the process of decomposition. Avoid cleaning it up too early, and let it.
Keep the edges of your garden messy to help the monarchs. Your little border to the wild will help them in their journey*/
