A Magical Summer Project
I think I first became aware of the plight of the monarch butterfly a year or so ago. I know it was last year that I learned of a friend’s efforts to raise them. I thought that sounded neat, so put it on this year’s gardening agenda. In late June, I went over to her house to see a batch she had going. There were already chrysalises formed! She had a ton of milkweed in her yard and I went home with four of her more immature plants. Of those four, two began to thrive, one sort of struggled and one died. She also gave me a packet of seeds, which I dutifully planted in four to five different areas of my gardens. The seeds only sprouted in one of the areas and I ended up thinning them out to four plants.
My thought was that next year I would have caterpillars. I did, however, observe a monarch (or was it more than one?) flitting about my yard, partaking of the phlox and bee balm. It cheered me, but I still thought nothing of it.
In early August, I encountered my first aphids and at first thought they were eggs. My mentor friend explained to me what an actual egg would look like. I kept looking. The first week in August, I made my first legitimate discovery:
I cannot describe how excited I was…..but it paled in comparison to the day I went out and saw this:
So a total of three caterpillars were born on August 10th. One of those three died within the first few days. I then, for some reason, took to examining the seedlings, even though it seemed highly unlikely there would be any eggs there, as they were less than 6 inches tall. Lo and behold, on August 12th, I discovered three new caterpillars!
During this three initial period, I struggled with how much to intervene. I did a bunch of internet research and asked my mentor for advice. I learned that only 1-5% of caterpillars born make it to adulthood. I also knew that I did not have sufficient milkweed in my garden for five caterpillars. So I decided to bring them in and raise them in captivity.
If I did this as a child in school, I do not remember it. It was a fascinating four weeks. I started every day by cleaning the cage and giving the babies fresh milkweed. At first it was just a couple of big leaves off of my bigger plants. As their appetites grew, I had to bring in reinforcements. Fortunately, the place where we field train had tons of milkweed in varying degrees of maturity so I was able to bring home lots of nice fresh milkweed.
And they tore through it.
Just when I despaired of keeping up with them, they were done eating.
And that’s when the magic started:
The timing could not have been better, as I was due to be out of town for a weekend and it was the first weekend after they had pupated.
The next weekend, they were ready to emerge.
And emerge they did. I missed all of it!
For all of Sunday, they hung out on my back porch. I brought in fresh flowers and put out a saucer of water, but they were not really interested. I think they were summoning up their strength for the big release the next day.
While this was all happening, I discovered Monarch Watch, a program out of the University of Kansas. This group has been monitoring the migratory patterns and populations of the monarch butterfly for many years. I learned I could get tags to identify my butterflies in the event they are located somewhere. I ordered tags and miraculously they arrived the day before my monarchs emerged. :)
This year there was even more publicity about the plight of the monarch and I discovered a number of big events geared toward education and tagging of the monarchs. In the spring, garden centers were offering free milkweed seeds.
Little did I realize what an impact my small garden would have in producing five migratory monarchs!
I journaled this project on Facebook and was gratified by all the interest. It has been a marvelous experience, one I hope to repeat in coming years.
Above all, it has reinforced the simple awesomeness that is nature.