Monarch caterpillars become toxic to predators by consuming milkweed leaves. Photo courtesy of William Vann.
Monarch butterflies seek out essential milkweed during their biannual migration between northern and southern habitats. Photo courtesy of William Vann.
Pat Ingalls
A homeowner couple has inspired PebbleCreek staff to plant a milkweed patch this spring to support monarch butterflies’ biannual migrations between northern and southern habitats. They’re hoping other PebbleCreek residents will follow their example.
During a class at Desert Botanical Garden, former Oregonians Judy and Ross Hart learned about entomologists’ international concern over the diminishing habitat for host plants available in North America for monarch butterflies to stop, rest and eat during their migrations.
“I couldn’t get the issue out of my mind,” Ross said about the monarchs’ plight. “We’re very much into environmental stewardship,” Judy said.
Each autumn the large orange and black insects fly up to 3,000 miles from their summer roosts in Canada to spend the winter in Mexico and California, then reverse the migration every spring. Their flight paths, particularly in the fall, often cross over the Phoenix area.
Milkweed is crucial to the life cycle of the monarch butterfly according to Southwest Monarch Study, a nonprofit organization dedicated to milkweed restoration across five states. Female monarchs seek out milkweed to lay their eggs and the hatched larvae then feed on specific varieties of milkweed that contain cardiac glycosides. Consuming the leaves makes the caterpillars — and butterflies — toxic to predators, which learn to avoid them. Monarch larvae, with their distinctive yellow and black stripes, may chew milkweed extensively, but established plants are known to bounce back quickly.
The Harts transformed their concern into action by including milkweed in their PebbleCreek home’s landscape plan. Then they asked Paul McGinnis, PebbleCreek’s director of golf course maintenance, to do the same.
“We wanted to do something as a community that could serve as a springboard for wider involvement and outreach on monarchs,” Ross Hart said.
McGinnis, who values the role golf course superintendents play in environmental stewardship, identified two open areas on Eagle’s Nest Golf Course in which to introduce a six by six foot cluster of milkweed host plants to attract monarchs during their biannual Goodyear flyover. One area lies behind the 17th tee by the course maintenance yard. The other is near the 11th tee, where two burrowing-owl habitats already exist as part of the U.S. Corps of Engineers’ Bullard Wash, a natural drainage area featuring a shallow water table.
“It looks like we will be the initial golf course in the Phoenix area to plant milkweed to encourage monarch butterflies,” McGinnis said.
McGinnis consulted with his plant supplier, Moon Valley Nursery, to order the two Arizona species of milkweed that monarchs favor: Asclepias subulata (common name rush or desert milkweed) and Asclepias angustifolia (Arizona or narrowleaf milkweed).
The Harts encourage other PebbleCreek residents to try planting a patch of three to five monarch-specific milkweed in their yards to help the butterflies endure.
More information is available online from Southwest Monarchs at www.swmonarchs.org and from the National Wildlife Organization at www.nwf.org.