Supporting monarchs in your very own garden.
The delicate flutter of a butterfly's wings brings a touch of magic to any garden, but few species are as loved or recognized as the Eastern Monarch Butterfly. Known for their epic migrations from all over the US (east of the Rocky Mountains) and their striking orange and black wings, these majestic insects are not only a joy to behold but also play a crucial role in pollination and ecosystem health.
Sadly, the Eastern Monarch Butterfly population has been declining in recent years. It has been reported that there was a 59% decrease in the overwintering population of eastern monarches in 2023-2024*. This is the second lowest number seen amongst the species since 2013-2014. These numbers are incredible devastating to the conservationist that are trying desperately to protect these beautiful creatures. It is believed that the drastic decrease is due to habitat loss, pesticide use, and climate change.
*Data from 1993-2003: Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve (MBBR, CONANP). Data from 2003-2023: WWF-Telcel Alliance, in coordination with the MBBR.
However, there is hope, and you can make a difference right in your own backyard by creating a welcoming environment for these beauties. It doesn’t take much to make a big difference and remember sometimes it seems like “how much does it matter if I do this since I’m only one yard?” It’s about a collective effort. We make a difference yard by yard and garden by garden. It’s not just you or me that will make the difference it’s everyone who is doing just a few things that will hopefully helps monarch numbers rebound.
image from Iowa State University
Here are some really simple things that you can do in your own yard or garden to support Monarchs:
Plant Milkweed in your garden: If you do one thing, let it be planting milkweed! Milkweed is the primary food source for Monarch caterpillars. By planting milkweed in your garden, you provide essential sustenance for these larvae to thrive. Native/wild milkweed numbers have been on steady decline as ranchers, developers and urban spread continue to eat up wild landscapes. There are several varieties of milkweed to choose from and looking for ones native to your area can be helpful. Some of the readily available ones include Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) and Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa). Regardless of which you choose you’ll enjoy each one for its own unique beauty.
Include Nectar Plants: Adult Monarch butterflies feed on the nectar of flowers, so it's essential to provide a variety of nectar-rich blooms throughout the growing season. Not only will these plants benefit our butterflies and other pollinators, but they will bring a lot of beauty and biodiversity back to your garden. Consider planting flowers such as Coneflowers, Black-eyed Susans, Zinnias, and Liatris to attract and nourish these winged wonders.
Avoid Pesticides and Herbicides: Pesticides can be harmful to butterflies, as well as other beneficial insects. Opt for organic gardening methods and avoid using pesticides whenever possible. Embracing natural pest control methods such as companion planting and attracting predatory insects like ladybugs can help maintain a healthy balance in your garden. Right along with this is reducing herbicide use. Many of the “weeds” we heavily spray for to maintain pristine yards are the bummer blossoms that aid in the monarch migrations in spring and fall. If you can even leave a small area with these “weeds” as feeding sites we could greatly aid all pollinators.
Provide Sun, Water, and Shelter: Monarch butterflies are sun-loving creatures, so be sure to plant your garden in a sunny spot. Having a water source is equally important. It is as simple as adding a small dish with pebbles or glass beads filled with water for the pollinators to land on drink as needed. Additionally, consider incorporating shrubs or tall grasses to provide shelter from wind and predators.
Create a Monarch Waystation: Consider registering your garden as a Monarch Waystation through Monarch Watch. These certified habitats provide essential resources for Monarch butterflies throughout their lifecycle and migration journey. It’s a simple process, and some fun bragging rights.
Educate Others: Spread awareness about the importance of Monarch conservation and share your passion for gardening for butterflies with friends, family, and neighbors. Encourage others to join in creating butterfly-friendly habitats in their own yards.
*images courtesy of Google.
See, it really doesn't take much to make a big difference. By taking these simple steps, you can transform your home garden into a haven for Eastern Monarch Butterflies and contribute to their conservation efforts. Together, we can all play a part in preserving the beauty and wonder of these remarkable insects for generations to come.
For more info and resources you can check out these amazing organizations:
Growing wildflowers to welcome life back to your garden.
Wildflowers are pure magic. They often are the first plants that comeback after natural disasters like fires and honestly they need those “hardships” to really flourish. Often wildflower sanctuaries and gardens will used prescribed burning to help them have better germination and growth. This phenomenon is actually where the name for my farm came from. It’s a nod to how the hardships I have faced in life have made me grow and flourish into the person I am today.
Wildflowers make a wonderful addition to any garden space or yard. They generally are low maintenance and will usually thrive under many conditions that non-native plants don’t. Their beauty is a little wild and I love that about them. I am someone that doesn’t want to show my dominance over nature by having a perfectly manicured lawn and garden. Often these spaces lack biodiversity and life. How many times have you heard people talking about the magic of fireflies (or lighting bugs depending on where you’re from) or butterflies from childhood and how there just aren’t many of them anymore. The reason is because we have created landscapes that don’t support the life they need to survive.
Many a suburban homeowner is on a rigid quarterly pesticide and herbicide treatment plan to keep all that life at bay. The trophy of best yard goes to the one with the “weed” free yard and meticulously manicured flowerbeds filled with non-native bedding plants. In order to have a variety of wildlife like birds and pollinators in our outdoor spaces we have to shift our mindsets around what creates a beautiful space and invited them back in. The first step in any of this is to have keystone host plants. The Ladybird Johnson’s wildflower Center website has some amazing lists of native plants for your local area. These plants are are critical for biodiversity that is needed to have healthy balanced ecosystems.
Back to wildflowers. It is fairly easy to find wildflower blends for your location and region. Don’t just buy generic wildflower mixed. Most commercial mixes sold at big box stores aren’t actually filled with native wildflowers. They are often filled with several, while amazing, flowering plants that have a “wild” or “cottage” feel to them, they aren’t in fact native wildflowers. If you search for local seed companies often you can find one that is a regional supplier. I found one here in central Oklahoma through my local conservation commission. The one I am using is Johnson Seed Co which is based in Enid Ok. I love that they have some premade seed blends that are specific to our regions. They also offer custom blending which I LOVE! Several of the local conservation organizations like our yard-by-yard and okies for monarchs have their own custom blends and they even donate back to these amazing programs!
Once you have found your wildflower seed source, it’s time to do a little prep work to get everything ready to go! Here is a short list of the things you’ll want to look at and decide on before you purchase your seeds:
Determine which seeds (or plants) you want to get. While most are relatively easy, having some knowledge on how to be successful is beneficial. This could also help you have more success by starting with seeds (or plants) that are more on a beginner level.
Learn when the best planting time is. Remember how I said some of these wildflowers like “hardship” one of those is a period of cold called stratification. This can be replicated if the varieties you want to grow need it and it’s the “wrong” time of the year for planting.
Prepare your planting site. You may need to prep an area for planting by tilling, racking, or killing off non-native turf grasses. There are natives that are a little slower to germinate or mature and making sure that faster growing non-natives don’t over take them is essential so preparing the site ahead of time will help to set you up for success.
Okay so now that we have the site ready to go lets get to planting! Remember what I said about knowing what time of the year it is best to sow your seeds, and plant at the appropriate time or follow any special germination instructions like cold stratification for optimal germination. Fall and spring are the most common times to plant due to cooler weather/temp and these seasons usually have more rain to help maintain soil moisture without having to additionally water. Fall is the prime time that many natives go to seed and naturally would reseed themselves so that is one reason it is an optimal time to put seeds out.
When you go to sow your wildflowers, you can either choose to hand-sow or use a crank-style seeder. Either option will work great for planting wildflowers and each offers its own pros and cons. When planting, it can be beneficial to sow more than the minimum listed to ensure a dense, gorgeous bloom. Once your seeds are evenly sown, you can rake back over the seed with your garden soil. Another thing that can help when sowing is to mix the seeds with sand or vermiculite to help with distribution. This also acts as a visual aide to see where the seeds have been sown.
Just because people like to say wildflowers are “low-maintenance” doesn’t mean they are “no-maintenance” wildflowers. You will need to weed the area your wildflowers are growing in to make sure they don’t get over ran and give them supplemental watering until they are well established. Additionally, your wildflowers may require annual mowing that will help disperse and germinate seeds. If the species present in your landscaping do not drop seed, they may also require reseeding over time to maintain a lush and colorful landscape. The following are just a few of my favorite native flowers local to where I live in Central Oklahoma:
Lanceleaf Coreopsis ‘tickseed"‘
Echinecea ‘Purple coneflower’
Rudbeckia ‘black-eyed susan’
Milkweed
Solidego ‘golden rod’
Asters
Yarrow
Happy Growing Flower Friends.
The story behind The Wildflower Cottage
Hey there flower friend! I wanted to take a little time to share the story of The Wildflower Cottage and why this farm holds such a big part of my heart. So let's start here; Like for so many, my most cherished memories are spending time with my grandparents. For me it’s the time we spent in their gardens. My paternal grandmother, who only answered to Meme, would spend hours in the garden with me and my cousins. She would tell us the names of flowers, have us pick ripe berries from the vine that were warm from the sun, and have us crush herbs between our fingers to release the fragrant oils to smell. We would gather bouquets to set the table for our tea parties of home made pies and lemonade. She would help us press flowers in books and do leaf rubbings with our broken crayons. With her it was always about making memories.
As a kid we moved a lot. My dad was military when I was a baby and toddler then entered into oil and gas. We never stayed in one place more than a year or two. The garden, and my memories I made there, literally helped me feel rooted in a world that was often changing. I can look back & realize that being in the garden with my hands in the dirt really are some of my most favorite childhood memories. I think we all have core memories tiedback to the earth in some way. Maybe you have similar stories.
“Almost every person, from childhood, has been touched by the untamed beauty of wildflowers."
LadyBird Johnson
With my family constantly moving being in the garden help me feel rooted. That feeling and love for being in the garden never left me. As I got into my teenage years I continues to help my parents create gardens in our rental homes. A trick that my parents taught me that I still do to this day is squeezing the bottom of 6 packs of annuals to swap out colors or skimpy plants for more robust varieties. My mom would often even pinch off seed heads that formed on annuals still at the store.
In college I found a job working at a local nursery. My knowledge of the plants that did well in our area or how to care for tricker varieties grew immensely. Not only was I getting to spend my days playing with plants but the 50% discount helps to feel my love. I began building my own garden in pots on my apartment balconies. During this time I even signed up for some gardening magazines, I’m telling you I came into my grannie hobby era early, and I remember reading one of them that a small farm had started a flower CSA (community supported agriculture). That was the first time I realized flower farming was an actual thing and my secret dreams of flower farming took hold. When my husband and I bought our first house can you guess what the selling feature was? That’s right, the big beautiful backyard with a koi pond and a lot of potential for me to grow both literally and metaphorically. And grow I did. In that first house we got engaged, married, started our little family. I kept dreaming of our next move being to some land where we could start our farm. However, when my oldestwas 15 mo old I felt like something was a little off. We had her evaluated though our state early intervention program but felt pretty confident we would be told we were fine. When our answers to the questions kept coming up as ‘no’ we got concerned. That day we were told she screened at high risk of autism and shortly after was diagnosed with moderate developmental delays. At the time I was 7 month pregnant with our second. I felt so scared and lost. Everything changed.....
"May your life be like a wildflower, growing freely in the beauty and joy of each day."
- Native American Proverb
We welcomed our second into our family and life was barely manageable as it is when a family grows. Our oldest began an intensive early intervention program 4 days a week. Within just a few months of that we got in with a psychologist where she got her official diagnosis of not only developmental disabilities but also level 3 autism. I started realizing that we would need to monitor our younger daughter’s development as well since instances of autism within families increased with siblings. When my younger daughter was 8 months she also screens with delays & would later receive similar diagnosis. With 2 children with profound developmental disabilities, my days became consumed with dr appts, therapy, & IEPs. At time, I felt like my dream had died. Depression followed as often does to caregivers of disabled children that are fighting constanly for their kids. I turned to my garden for respite & found peace there among the blooms. It always took me back to simple times. My children began joining me & I found flowers brought them joy too. The more time we spend among the flowers together hope came back. Every time I saw the pure joy in them when we harvested bowls of berries or a big bouquet for the kitchen table I realized my dream didn’t die. It changed. It wasn’t not centered on me anymore. It held my children at the center. It could be a safe place for them to learn life skills & blossom into who they are meant to be. I realized this was even bigger than our family & we could serve other families like ours. We could create opportunities to share the joy of flowers, the peace they can bring, & the wonder of sowing a seed & watching it grow into something beautiful. It didn’t just stop at my family. This could be something I shared with other families like mine. This could bring joy to anyone suffering a loss or grieving a life that shifted from what they thought it was going to be. I started to see that what I wanted out of the farm was to build community. I wanted to connect with others and share the hope and joy that flowers seem to bring. After all flowers are symbolic of shared life. They are give at the birth of a child or the death of a loved one. At milestones like birthday or people coming together in marriage. Flowers bring people together and in our world today, who doesn’t need need more connection?
If you’ve hung in this long, I think you know just how powerful flowers can be. Maybe they have had an impact on your life in a similar way to me. I hope more people will view flowers as more than a luxury purchase. I mean they aren’t food for survival, but they do feel our soul. They encourage us to slow down and savor the precious fleeting moments in a world that is often telling us to hustle and rush from one thing to the next. I hope that in reading this you will join this community we are building to share the joy with others too. Thanks for reading Flower Friend.
