The monarchs are coming, the monarchs are coming! At least I hope so. Like Paul Revere warning of impending war with Great Britain, I await the impending arrival of a different monarch. The butterflies. We have plenty of milkweed here at Forest Farm on which they may lay their eggs. In fact, we have an entire wildflower garden full of happy pollinators, because happy pollinators make for a productive garden. Without the pollinators, there would be no fruits or vegetables for the farmer or gardener. Populations of monarchs, an awe-inspiring species due to their incredible migrations, and honey bees, an important pollinator for many fruit trees, are disappearing from Colony Collapse Disorder. Pesticides and habitat fragmentation and loss not only endanger pollinators, but they jeopardize our food sources. Humans rely on pollinators like butterflies, moths, and honey bees for the food we eat.
Wikipedia has a nice chart of common food crops that bees pollinate. Imagine the trouble we will face if bees disappear! My beloved blueberries would probably get a lot more expensive. Is there something we can do? According to the New England Pollinator Handbook, “Protecting, enhancing or providing habitat is the best way to conserve native pollinators and, at the same time, provide pollen and nectar resources that support local honey bees.” We have a societal imperative to ensure that pollinators have plenty of habitat. Follow some simple steps to make your home or garden a pollination station. A pollination station can be a field, farm, or garden. To ensure that your home or garden provides a haven for our insect friends, try to include:
- a balance of sun and shelter
- a variety of native plants that serve as food for larvae. Milkweed is a must for monarchs
- pollen and nectar food plants for adults
- water
- no pesticides
Our garden contains a multitude of vegetables, but we also try to grow plenty of flowers. The bumblebees love borage, which we grow as a companion plant for our brassicas. Its blue, star-shaped flowers buzz with activity all summer long.
Borage flowers have a nice cucumber taste and go great in salads. Along the outer wall of the garden grows echinacea a.k.a. purple cone flower. The echinacea plants teem with butterflies. A little concerted effort to grow more flowers will ensure that your home or garden provides a haven for pollinators. If the pollinators are happy, we can expect good harvests of the numerous crops that require insect pollination.
Monarchs are not nearly as important pollinators for food crops as bees, but this incredible species has won a special place in our hearts. Their epic migrations take them from a specific annual winter nesting site in the Mexican jungle to summer locales throughout North America. Monarchs visit Maine in the summer months of July-September. Sadly, these incredible butterflies face drastic shortages of their beloved milkweed, and populations are dropping steadily across North America. Monarchs depend solely on milkweed (Asclepia sp.) to lay their eggs and to provide forage for young caterpillars. Although our wildflower garden has plenty of milkweed, I have yet to see any monarch butterflies, cocoons, or caterpillars on the them.
It may not seem to amount to much, but creating small havens for pollinators can give their populations the boost they need. If everyone replaced a little of their grassy lawn with a few beautiful and/or useful wildflowers, the bees, butterflies, and other pollinators would greatly appreciate it. Humans have caused these species to decline, but we can also help them rebound. In the meantime, we would also be protecting the stability of our farms and gardens, where pollinators play a crucial role in the raising of our food.