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A Flower Row for Butterflies

© Diana Pederson

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The Garden Writers Association of America sponsors a "Plant a Row for the Hungry" garden campaign each year. That got me to thinking about how I could creatively start a campaign for gardeners to provide butterfly food and nectar plants. Tentatively, I've come up with "A Flower Row for Butterflies." With today's column, I hope to start a worldwide campaign for the spring of 2000. With a few seeds, gardeners throughout the world can begin undoing the damage to butterfly habitat done during the 21st century. Let's start the new millenium (if you really believe it starts in the year 2000), by purposefully making plans to include butterfly nectar and food plants in our gardens.

Here is the logo for this new endeavor. Please feel free to copy and upload it to any webpages you may have, linking it back to this article. The more we spread the news, the better for butterflies! Participation in this endeavor is totally free. There is no formal organization needing permits, etc. The only cost to you is for seeds or plants. Feel free to share information with any garden groups you belong to. Refer back to this column for future news. Know of a website that should be contacted about participating? Email me at diana_pederson@suite101.com with the website address, name and email address of the webmaster and I will contact them immediately.

Beginning with this column, I will present information on various plants and the butterflies they support throughout the coming months. Let's kick off our new campaign by planning to increase Monarch buttefly habitat throughout North America. Although not considered endangered, the Monarch numbers are decreasing due to two basic problems:

1) Destruction of milkweed as a "weed" throughout North America and,

2) Logging or general habitat destruction of the Mexican and Californian wintering grounds.

Monarchs lay their eggs exclusively on milkweed (Asclepias species). Their caterpillars eat the milkweed and gain protection from absorbing its toxins into their bodies. This also makes them nasty tasting as adults so that birds leave them alone! They continue their life cycle by pupating on milkweeds and, later, feeding on milkweed nectar as adults.

As a gardener, you are the very best person to begin making a difference in Monarch butterfly numbers. How? By incorporating various species of milkweed into your garden borders or beds. Virtually every area of North American has one or more milkweed species as a native plant. There are several excellent websites for researching which species are native to your region.