Monarch Butterflies

It’s been a dismal year for the Monarchs. Milkweed - their favorite, is disappearing due to intensive farming and Monsanto.

We can help! Plant Milkweed everywhere there is a square inch of free land. In addition to milkweed, says Taylor, monarchs and other butterflies depend on nectar plants to fatten up. Zinnias, cosmos, Joe Pye weed, boneset, and verbena are all good choices. So is butterfly bush, he says, but because it can become invasive, use only sterile male plants.

Go to Monarch Watch to buy milkweed plugs which will start producing sooner than seed.                                                    

A larger challenge for anyone who loves the monarch butterfly migration is to lobby states and the Federal Highway Administration to plant its vast acreage of roadside land with milkweed and other flowering plants instead of grass. 

Federal Highway Administration
1200 New Jersey Ave., SE
Washington, DC 20590

Alabama, Idaho, Illinois, Minnesota, Texas, and West Virginia States have all named the monarch their state butterfly and could logically lead a national campaign. But every state in the monarch’s migratory range has a highway department, and studies have demonstrated that roadsides can make ideal butterfly habitat. In England in the 1990s, for instance, 25 butterfly species quickly moved in after the government designed a section of the M40 highway near Oxford as a butterfly travel corridor between protected woodlands.

This is serious, and we can really make a difference, please help.