Kaye Alban, a Licking County Master Garden Volunteer, created a lush sanctuary of milkweed at her home for beloved orange and black butterflies.
Milkweed is vital for the growth of monarch butterflies – a butterfly species that has seen significant population declines over the last few decades, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. According to EcoWatch, an environmental news organization, eastern monarch butterfly populations in the U.S. fell 85% between the mid-1990s and 2022.
The plant, found in pollinator gardens across Licking County, is the only food monarchs will eat in their lifetime, and it’s where they lay their eggs. But milkweed has been removed across the country for landscaping, urbanization, development and agriculture – meaning there’s significantly less milkweed for monarchs to lay eggs and for larva to feed.
“Monarchs are beautiful, and we all like them,” explained Joy Pratt, the art director at Harbor Community Center. “We know they’re disappearing, so what can we do to keep that from happening?”
On Friday, July 18, Alban spoke at the Buckeye Lake Community Center about how to raise butterflies as part of an ongoing speaker series about the environment. More than a dozen community members attended the event, where they learned about raising their own monarchs.
“Get the word out. Save the monarchs,” said Alban, who has been a master gardener volunteer for 27 years.
To start raising monarchs, you need somewhere to raise the caterpillars. Alban suggested a cheap hamper. “Seven bucks, you can’t beat that.”
As caterpillars grow, they shed their skins and eat it for protein four times and sit at the back of the container. “They’re resting, because their whole body is changing. It’s growing inside.”
When the caterpillars are ready to go into chrysalis, they will go to the top of the container in a “J” shape. Alban said they do this for about two days.
After two days, they become hard as rock. Alban warns that you don’t want them to fall when soft but “if they do fall, you just have to get them up, because if you don’t, they’re going to be disfigured.”
Within seven to ten days, the chrysalis will become a butterfly.
Alban informs to not let the butterfly outside before three hours have passed or if it is storming.
“They have all this fluid in their thorax, and they pump their wings up and then that all has to dry. If you would put them outside too quickly, those wings are so thin and if they hit something, the wing would collapse and, well, they would just be disfigured again. So you have to be really careful to make sure those wings are really, really dry before you let them outside.”
Alban will release her butterflies on a flower but, “Sometimes they’ll fly right away, other times they’ll kind of hang on that flower and I can get pictures” she said.
At this point you should have milkweed grown in your garden. “They’ll eat anything. As long as it’s milkweed,” said Alban.
There are three major issues monarchs face: pesticides, loss of habitat and climate change.
Pesticides, Alban said, can kill butterflies.
“People just spray stuff inadvertently,” Alban said. ”They see one bad insect and so they spray and of course it kills all the other insects… There are so many beneficial insects we need to protect just like the butterfly.”
Alban also told attendees that, if they plan to raise monarchs in their home, they cannot have “any light scented candles in your house. … It will kill them.”
At the end of August, monarchs migrate to Mexico because they can not survive in the North American climate for the winter. Climate change can impact when monarchs migrate and where they migrate to. Monarchs may need to adapt to a new migratory path depending on temperatures and how the plants they rely on for food and breeding also are affected by climate change.
Alban told The Reporting Project that what the community can do to help the butterflies, “just grow milkweed and get educated.” This is why she volunteers for these programs. She said an obstacle with educating people is “getting the word out.”
Alban ended her presentation with a mantra: “The monarchs of tomorrow will come from the milkweed seeds of today.”
Katie Nader writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.