Published: October 08, 2009 11:37 am      

Monarchs are coming; attract them to your garden

One of my fondest memories involves one of my daughter’s fall soccer games in Cleburne.

As the parents cheered and the kids kicked the ball, we noticed the sky darken as hundreds, maybe thousands, of monarch butterflies, Danaus plexippus, approached.

It was truly an amazing sight.

The parents stopped cheering, the kids stopped playing, and we all gazed up at butterflies.

Some fluttered down to the ground and landed on the bleachers, the people and the cars, but most stayed high in the sky headed south along their migratory path.

It is amazing how monarch butterflies guide themselves thousands of miles over terrain they have never seen before to overwinter where they have never been.

Monarchs are the world’s only insects to make a complete round trip migration, and it takes four generations to complete the trip.

They depart their breeding grounds in the northern United States and southern Canadian provinces east of the Rocky Mountains as the days become shorter and the nights cooler.

They arrive at their winter nesting grounds amid the oyamel fir forests high in the mountains of central Mexico in November.

They remain there until March of the following spring when they begin the return trip north.

The monarch migration is one of the world’s greatest natural wonders, and we in North Texas are very lucky to have a front row seat to this amazing journey.

We are situated between the principle breeding grounds to the north and the overwintering area in the south.

The migratory path through Texas is 300 miles wide and spans from Wichita Falls to Eagle Pass.

The peak time to observe the monarch migration in our area is the end of September through the middle of October.

If you are lucky, you may catch a glimpse of one as early as August or as late as November.

Monarchs tend to migrate in waves initiated by cold fronts arriving from the north.

Between cold fronts, they linger in woodlands near rivers and streams and feed on nectar plants.

This allows them to store fat in their abdomens to provide energy for their long journey.

The moment the winds come from the north, they catch the warm air and ride it high into the sky, then soar off in a southerly direction.

The direction and strength of the wind determines their daily progress.

With a strong northerly wind they can fly as much as 400 miles a day.

This explains why the half dozen or so monarchs I had been enjoying in my garden disappeared with the arrival of the Sept. 20 cold front.

I am looking forward to some new arrivals.

Sadly, the monarch population has decreased in recent years because of factors such as fire ants, which eat the eggs and larvae; the use of herbicides, which kills the host plant; pesticides; cars; predators; and extreme weather conditions such as high wind and cold weather.

Also, logging in Mexico has caused a decline in their roosting grounds.

We can help increase the monarch population by planting milkweed, the insect’s host plant.

Monarch butterflies will only lay eggs on the milkweed plant, and caterpillars only feed on the milkweed plant.

No milkweed, no butterflies.

Milkweed plants that are important to the monarch include antelope horns, A. asperula; tropical milkweed, A. curassavica; broadleaf milkweed, A. latifolia; zizotes milkweed, A. oenotheroide; butterfly weed, A. tuberose; and green milkweed, A. viridis.

Nectar plants are also crucial to the survival of the monarch.

Some of their favorite nectar plants may already be in your garden. They include phlox, Phlox paniculata; purple coneflower, Echinacea purpurea; white mist flower, Eupatorium wrightii; blue mist flower, Eupatorium greggii; lantana, Lantana spp., in assorted colors; scarlet sage, salvia coccinea; Indigo spires sage, Salvia x ‘Indigo spires’; butterfly weed, Asclepias tuberosa; Mexican mint marigold, Tagetes lucida; common buttonbush, Cephalanthus occidentalis; and gayfeather, Liatris spp., a spiked purple flower often found along roadsides.

For more information about monarchs, including how to distinguish them from other similar looking butterflies and how you can help them survive, contact The Texas Nature Trackers staff at 800-792-1112, ext. 8062 or view their Web site: www.tpwd.state.tx.us/nature.

You can also call the monarch hot line at 800-792-1112 ext. 8759, to report sightings of monarchs in your area.

Be sure to identify yourself, where you saw the monarchs, and your estimate of the number of monarchs you saw.

Other sources of great information include:

zx www.facebook.com/monarchwatch?_fb_noscript=1&v=wall

zx www.monarchwatch.org/waystations/

zx www.tpwd.state.tx.us/learning/texas_nature_trackers/monarch/

zx naba.org/

zx www.mlmp.org/

For more information on any gardening topic visit www.jcmga.org or call Pat Kriener at 817-793-4625.



Stacy Estep is a Johnson County Master Gardener Wildbucnh Writer from Burleson.