There are so many things that can go wrong during the life cycle of a Monarch Butterfly. It can be very discouraging. I have gotten to the point that I rarely try to raise them unless I find them as eggs. That way it is highly unlikely that they have been parasitized, though not a guarantee. My success rate is much better, though I still have an occasional cat die for no apparent reason. So, Rollie, try not to take it personally. And you've provided a priceless expanse of native habitat for countless insects and other creatures on your acreage. So, you have contributed to conserving our environment in a way most of us are not able to do. Thank you so much for the work and sacrifice I know it takes to accomplish such a project.

Martha

Thanks. Ill keep working on the habitat to make it better..

Hopefully I can learn more on Friday..

Here is a link that might be useful: New Prairie

Here is my newest bed, which is a rock garden seeding of BFMW, Lupine and mexican hat clovers. This seeding was done prior to placing the rock, which was placed in May. Im quite happy with the progress of these first year plants. Theres something about the ricks, whether its heat or what, but these plants just did well. It was alot easier to weed also.
As a bonus, youy can see the chrysalis hanging in the background on the siding of my garage.

I have probably had 30 cats on this planting, and this is the only one that has made it to this stage.. Had a big wind storm 2 weeks ago, that knocked most of my cats into oblivion.

I agree with docmom. You're doing a wonderful thing. At some point, if you get ambitious, you can start bringing them in to raise. Meanwhile, you are helping many native species by doing that large planting. Keep up the good work, and beautiful butterfly weed!
Liz

Bummer, I larve of some kind killed this cat.

I had a lot of cats the other day. Dh and I killed four assassin bugs that were killing cats. Then we found a wasp nest right above the milkweed. I removed that, but we still have wasps killing cats. All I have now are the three big cats that I put in jars during the last three days. Two of them are chrysalises now. Hopefully, the last one changes and we get three monarchs. Mother Nature is pretty brutal.

Tachinid fly larva.

Thanks John, how does the fly egg get inside the cat? My knowledge about fly larvae is that they are laid and hatch external on dead stuff. I'd like to learn more...

I searched out the information needed regarding the Tachinid fly. Discouraging again....

Well that's nature's way....some percentage (small) will likely survive...and you gave them a place to grow up.

The chrysalis in the picture from sept 2nd finally emerged today. 20 days seems like a long time. We had a real cold snap earlier and then a warming trend. It's cold again now, and I brought her in for the night.

20 days does seem like a long time, but you are in a cold zone so the growth rate will be slower. She is a late one though!

Sorry that you are experiencing some failures. It sounds like you have a great property though. Where are you located? Are you growing common milkweed Asclepias syriaca? That is the primary host species for the eastern Monarch population.

The wings on my monarch never completely unfurled. She's doomed. I've been taking her inside at night, and putting her outside on my butterfly milkweeds during the day. Another sad ending.. It's getting late in the year now. I have one chrysalis that is a week old inside now, and one cat that is only half inch long, but growing steadily.

I'm in northwest Iowa, I do have quite a bit of common milkweed on my property, but have struggled to find any activity on it for done reason or another. It seems like they are preferring my marsh and butterfly plants more.

Either way, I plan on making my property as butterfly friendly as I can!

Rollie,
What plants do you have growing on your property, and are you planning to introduce more natives and increase the diversity of your flora? I have been using the Wintersowing technique for years to start lots of native plants from seed. It has enabled me to have tons of plants that I couldn't have afforded, otherwise. I'm sure I have lots of seeds you might find valuable to add to your property, and you can probably get more seeds from the seed exchange forum.

Martha

I have quite a few forbs now in my prairie, but plan on doing a fall fire/burn and frost seed a new set if forbs into my property, I've been collecting marsh milkweed for almost a month now fir my lowland area, and plan on buying a wetland mix for 1/2 acre that drowns out every third year or so. I also have a lot of common mw.

Ah, you are doing things on a large scale, which makes sense given the size of your property. Are you going to kill off the plants that are growing before spreading seed? Or just the burn? I'm no expert, but I would recommend speaking with an expert about what preparation is recommended. I'd hate for you to waste time and money, and possibly lose a year or more by not making the appropriate preparations. Lots of people get frustrated and give up on this kind of project when it turns out more complicated than they expected. I don't want that to happen to you. Good luck and keep up the good work.

Martha

reposted for some reason.

This post was edited by rollie on Sat, Sep 27, 14 at 17:08

Lovely, just lovely!

Thanks, I took my furled winged Monarch out for a few walks, and then left her on my Butterfly milkweeds for a couple days and brought her in at night.

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I couldn't find her on the last day. Oh well.

I did have a perfect Butterfly on Saturday morning, who is now out on her/his own. Took her out for a walk on Sunday afternoon, and she took off.

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Ive got one more cat that's about half grown. Not sure if it will be too late or not, but Im hoping for the best.

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Incredible and absolutely beautiful. I can see why that is your favorite bed. I would recommend developing more beds like that one, but stuck in the middle of your prairie. Eventually the plants from the smaller bed will do some spreading and reseeding to fill in the entire area with more diversity. So good to know there are folk out there with the gumption it takes to get such a huge project accomplished. I have the utmost respect for the work you have done. I will hold you up as a measure to compare myself to...in the gentlest way, of course. But you give me something to strive for.

First, I need some land. That's a pretty significant obstacle. But, once the kids are done with high school so my husband can join me in my new community, then we'll shop for a good spot.

Martha

This is not going to be a very "sexy" post full of flowers and grasses and such.. Yet.

But, you've got to start somewhere. :)

I frost seeded 3K of forbs into my restoration last week. Broke it up into 4 different soil types.

Wet Mesic,
Mesic
Dry Mesic
Woodland mesic.

The wet mesic was a 1/2 acre complete restoration from the soil up. It has drowned out several times over the last 8 years, and was kind of just a mess. I seeded it with a variety of grasses, sedges, and forbs that can stand a few days of standing water, and some wet feet. The pod of yellow in the center is a patch of prairie cordgrass that I left
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I drug it with a spring tooth device, then broadcast the seeds, and then cultipacked it in.
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The mesic area is just above the wetland and is another 1/2 acre. and the dry mesic is above that, and turns a L to the right and is an acre.

Here is what it looked like this fall, prior to firing. It was in desperate need of a forb intervention!

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Here is what it looked like after seeding and dragging.

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Behind the metal shed, I have 2 acres of tall grass prairie meadow that I also did a forb intervention in.
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This stand of Big Blue, Indian Grass and a little switchgrass was hayed this summer in preparation for the forb package. I also burned it this fall, to give the forb seed the best chance at ground contact. It was also drug and cultipacked. This is what it looked like this fall, just before firing.
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There are a variety of butterfly caterpillars that depend on prairie grasses for food so don't look at a field grass as being worthless for butterflies. I grow at least four species of grasses just for possible butterfly caterpillars, switchgrass being one of them.

Kc, I did not eliminate any of my grasses, just burned them off or hayed them to make sure my seeds got good dirt contact for germination.

Part of my point, that was not made clear in any way, was those grasses likely had overwintering chrysalises.

I'm more of a late spring cleanup person. At least some of the overwintering bugs come out before cleanup happens. I recently learned that some types of bees overwinter in the hollow centers of my Joe-Pye.

Whatever we do, there are winners and losers. Part of what makes this stuff hard.

EDIT: I typed "Joy-Pye" the first time.

This post was edited by kcclark on Mon, Dec 15, 14 at 23:20

Understood. This is the first time Ive fall fired in 8 years. It was painful to do, because of (like you said) the other living things that were there. ..

Hopefully, things work out for the future inhabitants of my restoration..

Rollie,

I love that there are people out there like you, who undertake a large, and very important; project like this. The pictures are lovely. The work you did looks to be paying off grandly.

Are you on monarch migration path?

I envy you. How I would love to have the land you do. After years of growing, gardening on large land (years ago), I've learned to let the land work itself out. Its time consuming and very frustrating, but nature has a way to cycle plants and insects. It is a balance and sometimes when you interfere you set everything back to zero. Let nature take over. Step back, do little. The insects, butterflies and beneficial will come slowly and balance it all out the way it should be. There is only so much we can do.

Jane

I would love to agree with Jane, and just let nature "take its course," but there are so many invasive plants now, that you need to exert some active control over what grows, if you want to restore the plants that our insects have adapted to over the past millions of years.

Martha

That's what I've heard also. You especially have to get rid of the more aggressive or invasive nonnative plants, which can be quite a task! Otherwise, you'd be talking about decades of waiting around doing nothing.

Update: I walked both prairies this week, (tall and short grass) and am very happy with the results of my forb intervention. Everything is looking really really good, but hard to take pictures because of the juvenile plants are just starting to pop out of the ground. Some of the adult plants are coming strong, and not a thistle in sight.

Tall grass:

Short grass:

This is the time of year where it is obvious in my area that the foreign honeysuckles are taking over. It is obvious because they are in bloom. I just took out a 7+' one on my own property that had escaped my notice. It was growing up in the middle of another bush. Native plants just cannot compete and they need our help.

http://ohiodnr.gov/invasiveplants

Great work! I look forward to pictures of things in bloom, some day. This is the third year for my tiny pollinator bed, and everything is lush and healthy. Certain plants have heavily reseeded and others have rhizomes that have spread three feet. My next job is to put a chair out so I have a spot to sit and watch for the bugs to visit. Too bad these plants don't grow as well in cool shade.

Martha

Blooming now are Golden Alexanders, Lupines, Cream Wild Indigo and Prairie Smoke. The frost seeding I did is coming out of the ground nicely. I have my prairie authority/mentor here on Tuesday and he told me that my prairie was as nice of a restoration as he has ever seen, and hes been doing this along, long time. I told him I was honored, but I also told him getting to this point was a lot of work. I pretty much wear a smile the whole time Im out there walking in it..

Prairie Smoke,

Lupine

We converted one of our old sheds with a south face into a native plant conetainer nursery. We repurposed the old storm windows from the house when we put new windows in, and added 7 sliding patio door panels as skylights in the roof.

I have 1200 plants started as a second year experiment. Last year we planted 350 plants with this system and am currently at about 87% success for this spring, although some of the butterfly milkweeds are still popping out of the ground. I am doing this with my expanded favorites this year. There is 12 trays of 96 conetainers in each tray.

Trays are planted with Butterfly Milkweed, Round Headed Bush clover, Purple Prairie Clover, Michigan Lily, Prairie Lily, Prairie Dock, Prairie Dropseed grass, Hoary Puccoon, Prairie Turnip, Marsh Milkweed. Joe Pye, and one other that I cannot think of right now.

Hoary puccoon is the best early spring flower I've ever seen when it comes to attracting butterflies. I've tried to grow it a few times with zero success. :(

Neat Rollie, when are you going to make your commercial debut ? :)

My plans are to see how good this experiment goes, and hopefully select 12 butterfly favorites,(not Rollie favorites) and possibly market a 50 sq foot butterfly garden, with about 30 to 36 (3 of each, possibly) plants to the surrounding neighborhood. All the owner would need to do is designate the area and prep it, and I would come in and plant 30 plants for X amount. Thoughts?

If you could put list together of 12 Butterfly/pollinator plants, what would it be?