Butterflies are invading

and it's wonderful, of course

06/27/2010 8:40 PM

By Bonnie McGrath

3 Comments - Add Your Comment


I've always said that if you are good to your weeds they will be good to you. And through the years I have been able to enjoy the beautiful purple flowers of milk thistles, the beautiful yellow flowers of goldenrod and the beautiful white flowers of morning glory and Queen Anne's lace. Without spending a minute planting or investing a penny.


Now I have a butterfly garden in my front yard at Roosevelt and State that rivals (actually surpasses) the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum's butterfly habitat. All because I welcomed volunteer milkweeds into my landscape and let them flourish.

Monarch Butterflies love milkweed nectar to feed on while growing. It fills them with nourishment for themselves and poison for predators. So I am thrilled to have this accidental and very welcome (not to mention fragrant) haven for them--and me--right out my front door.

Last fall, after the milkweeds died, I brought my friend Charlotte two Starbucks shopping bags full of milkweed seed pods when I met her at a cocktail party at the Allegro Hotel. Everyone wondered what we were carrying. An authority on natural prairie plantings, she wanted to plant some and share some. And I provided plenty. Without spending a penny. Or ever lifting a spade.


3 Comments - Add Your Comment



By Charlotte Adelman from Wilmette
Posted: 08/12/2010 12:43 PM

Actually, goldenrods are native plants that host several species of butterflies AND provide the vital nectar that monarch butterflies must have for their long journeys south. In comparison, impatience is a nonnative annual that provides butterflies with nothing. You might as well install plastic flowers. The solution: Keep your beautiful native goldenrods and add beautiful native New England Asters. They host butterflies AND also provide monarchs with needed fall nectar (food).


By Bonnie McGrath from South Loop
Posted: 06/28/2010 4:31 PM

my friend charlotte had trouble posting this comment and asked me to do the honors: Thanks for spreading the Milkweed Word, Bonnie!! Milkweed is the only species our state insect, the monarch butterfly lays her eggs on and the only vegetation monarch caterpillars eat!! A small bit of land holds a couple/few Milkweeds (Asclepias species), showy, fragrant flowers that do best installed as small plants. Easily purchased species are pink/purple colored Sullivant's Milkweed and Swamp Milkweed and orange butterfly weed. Check the web for Prairie Nursery and Prairie Moon Nursery.


By Frances from Glenveiw
Posted: 06/27/2010 10:49 PM

Save me some milkweed seed pods this fall and I'll plant them in back of our house. They'll be an unlikely transplant from Chicago to the burbs.