Blog

For those of you who have subscribed to our blog, thank you! It’s been a while since I’ve written and I wanted to share a few thoughts with you as summer rolls on and fall is just around the bend.

For us here in Olathe, Kansas, we have had a drought of Monarch butterflies for almost all of June and July. I don’t think I saw a single Monarch until we traveled across Missouri this July. Thankfully, since the beginning of August, I’ve seen two or three flying through our backyard. A mamma or two even laid eggs on a few types of Milkweed we have growing… thank goodness, I was getting really nervous. Even though we are seeing adult butterflies, and noticing eggs and caterpillars, the numbers are still lower than what I’m used to seeing for this time of August. I was doing some reading and I feel like Chip Taylor has some helpful insights on what has happened to the Monarchs this year.

Monarch caterpillar enjoying Tropical Milkweed.

Chip explained that the lengthy periods of rain we saw this spring had an impact… “Rainfall, if it persists for days – and it did over wide areas – can make a difference by limiting the number of hours and days during which females can lay eggs. In other words, it can reduce realized fecundity because there are only so many days in a female’s life and there is no way to fully recover from time lost.”

Chip also went on to say that the early cool weather we enjoyed in early August has also had an impact on the Monarchs. “As most of you know, the size of the last generation is a function of the number of eggs laid from about 20 July to 5-10 August as well as the quality of the milkweeds and the weather. The adults from that oviposition typically emerge throughout August into early September. This year the emergence could be delayed due to a cold front that moved into the northern breeding area starting on the 4th of August. Overnight temperatures dipped into the 50s in many areas limiting the number of hours for larval development. It’s possible that development has been pushed back by at least 10 days. This means that monarchs that would normally be on the wing in early to mid-August are still larvae or pupae at this writing (19 August). Hopefully, that’s the case, and we are simply dealing with a late emergence and migration.”

Lengthy rainy spells and a period of cooler weather in early August seems like two variables that have made a big difference on Monarch egg laying and larval development. For me, Chip Taylor is the expert I trust when it comes to all things Monarchs and their migration. To read his most recent blog post “Monarch Population Status” – August 20th 2024 click this link Monarch Watch Blog.

One other variable Chip mentioned was the quality of the Milkweed plants available to Monarchs. This continues to be an issue as well. I have no doubt that if you have read this far, you probably care about Monarchs and have some knowledge of Milkweed. I know for me, in my microcosm, I really can’t help the amount of rain or the temperature fluctuations that have impacted Monarchs this year, but what I can do is plant more Milkweed. I can do my best to add a few more different species, such as Swamp Milkweed – Asclepias incarnata, Common Milkweed – Asclepias syriaca, and Butterfly Milkweed – Asclepias tuberosa. These do great in our Kansas City area. Looking for the right types of Milkweeds for your area… check out this great guide by the Pollinator Partnership. Just scroll down, type in your zip code, and they will provide you with a PDF resource that has been created to cover the unique ecoregion you live in.

This fall, may we all make a goal to add at least one more Milkweed plant in our outdoor space(s), or find a friend, neighbor, coworker, or family member that can. Providing quality Milkweed plants for Monarchs is a great way we can all help. Which species are you planting?

If you’re in the Kansas City area, we’d love to see you at one of our upcoming sales. We’ll have some Milkweed plants available for purchase, as well as other native plants that can help create more habitat for wildlife in our gardens and landscapes. To find a list of our upcoming sales, and a list of the plants we plan to have available, please check out our Fall ’24 – Plant Sales page. And… if you are in the Olathe area on Saturday, September 28th, check out the Hasta Luego Monarchs event. This is a free family event that creates a fun experience for kids of all ages that celebrates the Monarch Migration!!! – Jay Parsons

Happy Fall!!! We are so excited for this season and all it has to offer… cooler temps, colorful leaves, fire pits, and great weather for gardening. If you’ve read any of our earlier posts, you’ve noticed we love fall and think this is one of the best times to add native plants to our outdoor spaces. We also love this time of year because of the annual Monarch migration. This amazing phenomenon is special… and as these Monarch butterflies travel to their overwintering home in Mexico, we get a chance to say goodbye and prepare our gardens and landscapes for when the next generation returns next spring.

If you’ve thought about adding Milkweed to help the Monarchs, fall is a great time to do it. The cooler weather and shortened days helps provide newly planted Milkweeds a great chance to get comfortable in their new homes before winter weather sets in. The two native Milkweeds we recommend to help provide lots of food for Monarch caterpillars are Common Milkweed – Asclepias syriaca and Swamp Milkweed – Asclepias incarnata (more info below). We will have many of these available, as well as many other native wildflowers, at the upcoming Hasta Luego Monarchs event on Saturday, September 24th. This is a great event, free and family friendly, that celebrates the Monarch migration. We are excited to be apart of Hasta Luego Monarchs this year and we’ll have native plants available for sale from 9:00 am – Noon, or until sold out (plant list below). A portion of our total sales will be donated to support the great work at the Pollinator Prairie!!!

Come on out and bring the family… enjoy the beautiful fall weather… and celebrate the amazing Monarch migration with us… see you then! – Jay Parsons

So much rain… so little sun. Like many of our plants, we’ve been anxiously looking forward to the sun’s return. It seems that May forgot that the showers are April’s thing. Thank goodness June is here!!! I’m excited for sunshine and warmer weather… and it’s looking like June will be a great time to get caught up on planting!

If you’re looking to add more native plants to your gardens and landscapes this year, but haven’t been able to yet, you’re not alone. We have several Farmers Market & Plant Sales scheduled for June and we’ll have several types of native plants available for purchase to help you add more habitat for bees, birds, butterflies, and other wildlife to your outdoor spaces! June is here… what will you plant?

If you have questions, or you’d like to preorder some plants for pick up at one of our upcoming sales… please Contact Us, we’d love to help! – Jay Parsons

When we’re asked about the best ways to get Monarch butterflies to visit our yards we always start with Milkweed.  It’s simple.  Sure, Monarchs need more than just Milkweed… but without Milkweed their wouldn’t be anymore Monarchs.  Growing Milkweed for Monarchs is the answer.

We would love to chat with you if you have questions about Milkweed.  You can reach out to us by simply clicking the link below.  Due to the current stay-at-home order in Kansas, we won’t be able to see our customers at the farmers market and plant sales we had originally scheduled for this Spring.  Instead, we are taking orders on our website and are currently accepting orders for our second round of deliveries that will go out on Saturday, May 2nd.  For more information, and to see what we currently have available and/or to place your own order, please click the Order Plants link below.  We appreciate your support for our small business and sharing us with your friends!

Contact Us     –     Order Plants

If you live outside the Kansas City area, we would recommend ordering plants online from Prairie Moon and/or Prairie Nursery.  We have had great experiences with both in the past and would highly recommend each of them.

The weather these next few weeks should be great for planting more Milkweed in our outdoor spaces!

– Jay Parsons

Milkweed & Monarch Resources

Here are a few resources you may find helpful in learning more about the native Milkweed plants that are best for our outdoor spaces.

Butterflies Go Native in Your Garden! A great resource, created by Lenora Larson, provides great information on other native plants, other than Milkweed, you can add to your outdoor spaces to help create need habitat for many more butterflies.

Journey North’s For an update on the current status of the Monarch’s Northern Migration.

Milkweed for Monarchs Information from the National Wildlife Federation about Milkweed.

Monarch Population Status Here is Chip Taylor’s (Monarch Watch) thoughts about the current situation with Monarchs.

We love this time of year.  As the days get warmer we enjoying spending more time outside, seeing our favorite plants and insects come alive, and welcoming back migrating birds and Monarch butterflies to our yard.  For the past seven years, we have gradually been creating more habitat for bees, birds, and butterflies to our yard by planting more native plants.  Every year it gets better and better, and it’s been fun experiencing it all with our son and daughter!

Even though we’ve all been forced to embrace a new normal this Spring, it is still a great time to add and create more habitat for wildlife.  By adding even just a few native wildflowers, we can help so many pollinators and birds, while reconnecting with nature at the same time.  Plus, with so many of us spending more time at home for the foreseeable future, Spring 2020 is turning into the perfect opportunity for each of us to create more habitat in our gardens and landscapes by planting more native plants!

But here is the big why for me… the Monarchs are coming!  As of this writing, the Monarch migration has been paused, due to the recent cold snap, and the leading edge is just to our south, according to Journey North.  I have a feeling that as the weather starts to warm up in the next week they will continue their journey and we’ll start to see Monarchs again!  However, for many of these Monarchs, their journey is coming to an end.  The first Monarchs we see are more than likely the ones that have left their overwintering homes in Mexico to move north and breed.  As the frail female Monarchs look to deposit their last eggs they are in need of only one thing… Milkweed.  This next generation of Monarchs, as well as all subsequent generations, depend on Milkweed.  Milkweed is the only type of plant that Monarch caterpillars will eat, and this is why it’s up to you and me to plant more Milkweed wherever we have space!

We would love to chat with you if you have questions about Milkweed.  You can reach out to us by simply clicking the link below.  Due to the current stay-at-home order in Kansas, we won’t be able to see our customers at the farmers market and plant sales we had originally scheduled for this Spring.  Instead, we are taking orders on our website and we’ll begin delivering orders starting the weekend of April 25. To see what we currently have available and/or to place your own order, please click the link below.  We appreciate your support for our small business and sharing us with your friends!

Contact Us     –     Order Plants

If you live outside the Kansas City area, we would recommend ordering plants online from Prairie Moon and/or Prairie Nursery.  We have had great experiences with both in the past and would highly recommend each of them.

Let’s take this Spring and decide to create more space for Monarchs by planting more Milkweed in our outdoor spaces!

– Jay Parsons

Additional Resources

Monarch Watch

Journey North

Xerces Society

The National Wildlife Federation

Deep Roots KC

Contain the Rain

I can remember like it was yesterday… my dad and I had just completed a small pond project in his backyard.  After the last stone was put in just the right place, and the water started flowing once the pump was plugged in, we sat back and admired our work.  For the next few days, as I sat out in my parents’ backyard, chatting about this and that, it became obvious that we needed to add some plants to help put the finishing touches to this new water feature.

We had heard about a plant sale being hosted by a local garden club in Omaha and thought we’d give it a shot.  As we strolled through the myriad of Geraniums, Impatiens, Petunias, and other flowering annuals, we came upon a section of plants that weren’t in bloom.  At first glance, I didn’t notice anything noteworthy about these “not so pretty” plants, so I continued on to the next table.  But before moving on I noticed a tiny picture of a Monarch, sitting on a pink flower, printed on a small plant label that was attached to one of those “not so pretty ones.”  I decided to take a closer look.  Swamp Milkweed is what the label read.  Huh… Milkweed…  I had heard about how Monarch butterflies use Milkweed for their caterpillars’ food, but had never seen a Milkweed plant for sale before.  Despite being short and skinny plants, these Swamp Milkweeds looked really healthy, and the tag said they liked to grow in wetter soils in full sun.  “Bingo!”  I thought… these would work great around our pond.  So, I picked out three plants, and with a sense of curiosity, took them back to my parents’ backyard to plant.

I wasn’t too impressed with them at first.  After planting them, they grew slowly at first.  After a few weeks they grew really well, but didn’t produce any flowers.  In fact, the only color they seemed to sport was the yellowish orange hue from all of the Aphids that were feeding on the stems.

I had almost forgotten about these plants, but around late July, the following year, they started to flower and they smelled like vanilla to me.  Plus, there were several kinds of bees that I’d never seen before stopping by for a drink.  Lady Bug larva had found the Aphids and would make quick work of them… so much was going on in this small area around our pond.  But, it wasn’t until I spotted a black, yellow, and white stripped caterpillar hanging out on one of the Swamp Milkweed that I froze. I got lost in the moment… this chubby bug had my full attention and just like a child, I was full of wonder.  What to some might have seemed like a mere bug sighting, to me, was a “holy crap… it worked,” type of moment.  I hadn’t seen a single Monarch butterfly, nor did I even know what their tiny eggs looked like, but there was no mistaking that this was a Monarch caterpillar.  Questions started swirling… how did it get here?  Were there more?  How big do they get?  On and on it went, and then I spotted another one… and another.  Altogether, there were seven Monarch caterpillars munching on our Swamp Milkweed!

Needless to say, this initial experience with these Monarch caterpillars,  helped to awaken a passion in me that has lead me in learning about native wildflowers, grasses, shrubs, trees, and the important connections they have with wildlife.  These often “looked over” or “misunderstood” plants are not truly the “ugly” ones… they are simply the “needed” ones.

When I’m asked about why I grow, sell, and landscape with native wildflowers, grasses, shrubs, and trees, the answer seems to surprise others.  What they’re most surprised about, is just how important native plants are.  When others discover that without them, our native insects, birds, and other critters wouldn’t have the habitat they need to survive, they get it.  What we plant matters… and it matters to so much more than we often realize. This realization is the beginning to discovering how we can each create a place for wildlife in our own outdoor spaces.

I’d love to hear your story about how you’ve learned about native plants and/or added them to your outdoor space to help create a place for pollinators, birds, butterflies, and other critters. If you’re new to native plants, and the role they play in creating habitat, we’d love to help answer questions and lead you to just the right plants for your space.

Creating habitat… one plant at a time. It’s that simple! Happy planting!