Community Corner
It's Time for Butterflies
Put out the welcome mat for butterflies, including monarchs, by adding plants they like to your landscape, and don't use pesticides or chemicals that could kill them.
Back East, October was known around my house as the Month of Dead Gardens. Annuals have been pulled up by their roots and dumped in yard waste bins; perennials have been buried for protection from oncoming frost. Cold north winds auger the deep freeze to come. And butterflies vamoose.
Out West, it’s more like Poetry In Motion Month as butterflies from the north swarm the scorching southland. They catch the breeze and in one fell swoop blot out all my complaining.
The great Monarch migration should become evident this week as the russet and butter-yellow beauties arrive for winter. Each monarch travels 50 miles or more daily for about a month.
Zero survive the trek from either north to south or east to west. Along the way, a monarch lays new eggs then dies. By the time monarchs hit California, we are likely seeing great-great grandchildren.
Upon their arrival, these social butterflies cluster in large masses to conserve heat. From mid-October through February each year, monarchs sleep in California's coastal eucalyptus groves.
Monarch’s kissing cousin are Painted Ladies, which have similar coloration and are also migrating here this month to join the tiger swallowtails, skippers, fritillaries that are already in full-munch mode. On cool sunny mornings, they often bask on a rock to warm their tiny muscles in order to recharge for energy-draining flight patterns.
Some butterfly species have ears. Others make clicking sounds. Certain butterflies communicate with ants using vibrations for larvae protection. Many butterflies (usually the female) release perfumed pheromones as a seduction.
Butterflies through the ages captivated ancient Greeks, who used the word “psyche” to signify the glorious “butter-flying” insect. Victor Hugo wrote: “We dream that all white butterflies above...Are but torn love-letters.” Emily Dickinson wrote no fewer than a dozen poems about them.
But in recent years, the butterfly population has been decimated. In the 1980s, as many as 170,000 monarchs would descend each fall in Santa Cruz; in 2010 just 3,800 monarchs showed up. Chip Taylor, professor of entomology and director of Monarch Watch, explains, "California and much of the West has gotten warmer, drying up sources of water that the butterflies rely upon.”
Making matters worse is California’s widespread use of herbicides to control milkweed, a plant that butterflies like, along roadways and on railroad tracks. Climate change, human encroachment, tree removal and road installations further contribute to a hostile environment.
Some publi spaces are fighting the good butterfly fight, including the Studio City Unitarian Universalist Church’s children’s butterfly gardens; California State University Northridge Botanic Garden; and the California Academy of Sciences’ S.F. rooftop garden designed by Renzo Piano, which showcases flowers that draw butterflies like moths to a flame, including Sea Pink (Armeria maritima) and Stonecrop (Sedum spathulifolium), which produce nectar for the Hairstreak butterfly and the threatened San Bruno elfin butterfly.
To lay out the welcome mat in your garden, you can design plantings to attract specific types of butterflies:
- Monarchs: Its nectar plants of choice include buddleia (aptly called butterfly bush), zinnias, lantana milkweed (also their host plant), thistle, buckeye, abelia, asters, cosmos, mallow, hollyhock, verbena, impatiens, clover and daisies. Their tree hosts include elm, poplar, willow, birch, cherry, and plum.
- Fritillaries: This butterfly ranges in size from a wingspan of 2” to 4” and will awaken from its slumber in its host plant of violets, on which it feeds. It also lands on the same plants as Monarchs, including Pentas and Red Clover.
- Black and tiger swallowtails: These butterflies with distinctive yellow markings gravitate toward birch and cherry trees. They also flock to lilac bushes and tulip and fennel patches and derive their nectar from sunflowers, honeysuckle, and bee balm in addition to the usual sources.
- Painted Ladies: Resembling monarchs but less geometric and with a smaller wing span, this buttefly likes to nest in thistle, hollyhock, and mallow and gets its sustenance from aster, cosmos, blazing star, ironweed, and Joe-pye weed.
- Cloudless sulphur butterfly: Often mistaken for pale moths, this species likes bougainvillea, hibiscus, and morning glory.
- The Mourning Cloak: Unlike most other butterflies, this one is communal. After the groups of eggs hatch, the caterpillars will feed in groups and move in unison. This butterfly gets sustenance from rotting fruit and meadow flowers.
WHAT TO DO TO ATTRACT BUTTERFLIES:
Include both caterpillar food plants and butterfly nectaring plants. Including caterpillar plants in your garden means butterflies are more likely to linger and explore possible sites to lay eggs.
Recycle yogurt containers or foam egg cartons to start seeds. Punch a small hole in the bottom of the containers, fill with soil, bury seeds, then place containers on trays to catch extra water.
Avoid insecticides/pesticides on or near your garden. They kill butterflies.
STEAL THIS IDEA:
Set aside a patch for butterflies. Arrange plants by height--shorter, medium, taller--and clump them by species and color.
As butterflies search for food, they see large splashes of color more easily than the small points of individual flowers. Butterflies particularly like red, orange, yellow, and purple flowers.
