Accent on Natural Landscaping

Donna VanBuecken

Project Wingspan

This is the time of year our thoughts turn to collecting seed from our prairies. Project Wingspan could use our help. They are looking for enthusiastic seed collecting volunteers in Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to help collect seeds from milkweed and other common forage plants.

Project Wingspan

Monarch butterfly on New England Aster (Symphotrichum novae-angliae).
Monarch butterfly on New England Aster (Symphotrichum novae-angliae).

Project Wingspan: Landscape Enhancement for Imperiled Pollinators of the Midwest (Wingspan) is a two-year project sponsored by a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) through the non-profit Pollinator Partnership. The goal is to engage public land managers and private land stewards, throughout the eight state target region of Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, to enhance and secure 10,000, acres of high-quality Monarch, Rusty Patched Bumble Bee and other imperiled pollinator habitat.

Seed Collection

This short-term seed collection project is designed to increase the interest and skill in collecting seed to be used for restoration and enhancement efforts. Wingspan builds on the success Pollinator Partnership and its team of core partners have had in building a regional seed collection program in Ohio, Illinois and Indiana through a previously funded NFWF project, Monarch Wings Across the Eastern Broadleaf Forest.

All seed generated from this project will be used to support the development of geographically appropriate native plant materials for the enhancement of 10,000 acres of Monarch, Rusty Patched Bumble Bee and other imperiled pollinator habitat.

How To

Project Wingspan has developed a series of webinars and a training manual to assist volunteers who which to collect seed for this project to become certified Project Wingspan volunteers. The project has targeted twenty-nine plant species (Appendix A of training manual) and six states (Appendix J of training manual) for seed collection.

Download Project Wingspan: Landscape Enhancement for Imperiled Pollinators of the Midwest manual.

Download Plant Profiles for the 29 target species. Bloom Chart. Plant Structure Guide.

PowerPoint Training.

This post has been reprinted in part from the Pollinator Action Team newsletter dated 9/30/2019.

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Reporting Monarch Habitat

Monarchs in the eastern U.S. population had a good summer in 2019 in part because of good habitat conditions in Wisconsin and other breeding grounds. Photo by Jack Silverberg courtesy of WDNR

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) has declared that our habitat development has added up to a good summer for monarchs

“Wisconsin’s ‘supergeneration’ of monarchs are now flying 1,700 miles to their overwintering sites in Mexico where official population counts will be taken. Already, citizen reports to Journey North* show monarch numbers were impressive during this summer’s breeding period.

Thank you to everyone who planted or maintained milkweed and other native plants in 2019 to aid monarchs and other pollinators. You are making a difference!

  • To follow the monarch’s incredible journey and learn more about why 2019 is shaping up to be a good year for monarchs, visit Journey North.
  • To report your monarch habitat and be added to the tally for Wisconsin, download HabiTally** on your iOS device today.

The information above was taken from the Natural Heritage Conservation newsletter dated 10/3/2019.

See also Wisconsin Monarch Collaborative.

*Journey North is a web-based platform tracking migration in real-time, now hosted by the UW-Arboretum in Madison, Wisconsin.

**HabiTally is a new mobile app that helps ensure all habitat efforts for Monarchs are documented.

  • The data entered through HabiTally will be shared with USFWS to be considered in the listing decision on monarch butterflies
  • The information collected will be made anonymous and aggregated at the county level across the eastern migratory region
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The Amazing Monarch Migration

Today we have a guest writer. Tim Eisele, who is a fellow member of both Wild Ones and Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame, sent this for me to share with you. Enjoy!

The Amazing Monarch Migration

Simply amazing is the word for the migration of monarch butterflies that moved through Wisconsin in September.

A Monarch butterfly probes New England Asters for nourishment. Photo by Tim Eisele

Many people remarked seeing legions of monarchs either roosting in nearby pine trees overnight or floating above flowers in backyards or fields.

Mark and Sue-Foote Martin, co-managers of the Madison Audubon Society’s Goose Pond (Columbia County) did regular counts and saw a high of 1,800 monarchs roosting in the pines overnight on September 9 and 16.

Karen Oberhauser, executive director of the UW-Madison Arboretum and a noted authority on monarchs, said that the monarchs we’ve been watching emerged from a chrysalis several weeks ago and are now migrating to Mexico where they will winter and then begin to migrate back north in the spring.

As they return in the spring, they will mate, lay eggs and die, and their offspring will continue the migration north.

Unlike bird migration, where individuals migrate south to wintering grounds and then back north for breeding areas, the monarch migration is comprised of three or four generations.  In other words, the individual butterfly moving through Wisconsin this fall was the grandchild or great grandchild of the adult that left the wintering areas in Mexico in the spring.

Sunlight lights up the wings of a Monarch butterfly on the non-native annual Zinnia. Photo by Tim Eisele

Oberhauser said that what butterflies need are milkweed plants, because that is the only plant that monarch caterpillars will eat, and they therefore lay their eggs on milkweed.

During the summer and fall migration the adults need nectar and they use asters, meadow blazingstar, coneflowers, black-eyed susans, beebalm, and other native flowers (as well as some non-native ones).

“The key is to have plants blooming from May through September,” Oberhauser said.

To see where people are seeing concentrations of monarchs on their way to Mexico, go to Journey North.

And, to attract more monarchs to your property next year, the Wisconsin Monarch Collaborative encourages landowners to plant more milkweed to benefit monarchs.

Thanks, Tim. Nice job!

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Fall Equinox 2019

Have you noticed the days have been getting shorter? In fact, today, Monday September 23, 2019 at 2:50 am CDT, we reached the autumnal equinox when the night was about as long as the day. This equality between night and day also happens during the spring equinox in late March. From now on (for 182 days) the days will continue to grow shorter until late December.

AUTUMN CHORES

Black Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes) shown here on Ironweed (Vernonia altissima) overwinter as pupa inside a brownish chrysalis. They attach their chrysalis to plant stems, sticks and rocks, usually within a meter of the ground.

The autumnal equinox also signals the time for we landowners to begin preparing our yards for the coming winter. This year let’s try to keep as many leaves and twigs in our yards as we can. Many butterflies over-winter wrapped in leaves either as chrysalis or as caterpillars. Mulching the leaves, cuts them up. Removing them buries them in the local landfill.

Tiger Swallowtails, for example, overwinter. Their chrysalis looks like a dried leaf and are typically attached to a tree or the stem of a plant in the garden.

Besides butterflies, there are many other insects that winter over in the fallen leaves and in and on twigs and stems. As the lawn and garden debris breaks down over the course of the winter season, they also provide much needed nourishment for the soil. If  allowing the leaves and twigs to remain where they fall, is just not acceptable, try dumping the leaves around nearby trees to provide a mulch cover for their thirsty roots. You’ll be amazed how good this will make you feel, knowing you’ve helped maintain the home of an overwintering insect or simply nourishing the soil.

BACKYARD SURPRISE

Wednesday afternoon, September 20, 2019 we had a wonderful surprise in our backyard and in our prairie. The Monarch butterflies were grouping up. What an awesome sight!

Although you don’t see much of the Rubeckia fulgida ‘goldsturm’ in this video, the New England Asters (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae) grow in the same area as these non-native Black-eyed Susans. With all the buzzing and flitting around, there still was NO insect activity on the goldsturm. In the video below you’ll see at least eight different Monarchs (Danaus phlexippus)as well as two Painted Ladies (Vanessa cardui) and a Pearl Crescent (Phyciodes tharos), along with a variety of bees and other insects.

After the excitement settled down, I walked out into the prairie and found more Monarchs helping themselves to the many New England Asters. Another one of the unexpected benefits which came from the flattening of our prairie during the July storms was the added sunshine, because of the fallen trees, which allowed the New England Aster to grow more prominently.

Although I try to keep the Canada Goldenrod (Solidago canadensis) under control, I do like the look of the golds and purples together. This year it seemed the goldenrod was blooming ahead of the asters, however.

 

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