Milkweeds & Monarchs
With the dramatic decline of the Monarch Butterfly, milkweeds and pollinator favorites are the name of the game in today’s native landscaping. Why? Milkweeds provide the exclusive food to the Monarch's caterpillar. Consider planting a milkweed and season long bloom times to aid in their recovery.
Also because we have lost so many milkweeds in the last 20 years to genetically modified crops being sprayed over and over again with glyphosate. When we lose the host plant, we lose the species. Monarchs migrate up to 3,100 miles each season to Mexico to over winter. Is that correct? YES!! It takes Monarchs up to 5 generations to migrate down there were they hang out in fir trees for protection. However, the Monarch’s overwintering grounds are being lost to legal and illegal logging. This on top of the milkweed loss, global warming, loss of habitat, stresses, and the list goes on, is really making for a trend to extinction.
You Are What You Eat….
Illinois is smack dab in the middle of their migration, which is so important to give them great food for their flight!!! They need milkweeds to gain energy to move from the caterpillar stage to the adult butterfly stage. Then they need quality nectar sources thoughout the season to give them the energy and other vital nutrients to migrate, reproduce, and then migrate again. Native plants are far better than many other sources. Quality native nectar food sources are plants such as milkweeds, but more so; Asters, coneflowers, Liatris, Monarda, Penstemon, goldenrods, and almost all native flowering plants.
Read More about Monarch milkweed and habitat needs. Interested in other butterfly host and nectar plants, click here.
Plant a native garden with a diversity of plants and flowers to help these Monarchs out!!!
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Daniel
Daniel
★★★★★
Natural communities and specifically Nick has been an
excellent and knowledgeable entity to work with on my big project. With the
help of my school, my students, many community partners, and Natural
Communities, we are in the process of restoring an area on a high school campus
to a natural prairie/pond area. Nick has come out to do site visits, he has
recommended various plant species that would work best for us, and he has been
able to get us what we want wholesale. Our site is not an easy project because
we are restricted to only native plants and native seeds and Natural
Communities has excelled in meeting our needs on this. Overall, I am so glad we
ended up working with Natural Communities because they have helped so much.
Ron
Ron
★★★★★
Our company has worked with Nick Fuller since before he
became Chief Ecological Officer for Natural Communities, LLC. His
knowledge of native plants and native seeds is remarkable. Nick was the
original steward of our 4-acre wildflower/wild grass prairie and has served us
as a reliable consultant ever since 2006. His continuing insights have
helped us to maintain and grow a healthy ecosystem.
Kathy
Kathy
★★★★★
I am extremely pleased with the one hour consultation I had
with Nick Fuller regarding our wetland creek. We have invasive plants and
grasses that have taken over our creek bed and we needed guidance on how to
both effectively remove the invasives and restore the area with native
plants suitable for the creek. Nick asked pertinent questions that allowed Nick
to identify plants and shrubs suitable for the area with a timeline for
planting. Nick also provided a detailed outline of the steps needed to remove the
invasives. I highly recommend Nick to anyone seeking help with their native
plant garden or to anyone interested in growing a native plant garden.
Shane
Shane
★★★★★
Spoke to owner in depth regarding a couple of different
projects I’m working on- very knowledgeable and professional. I plan on
purchasing seed for my projects through Natural Communities and will follow up
in the future if necessary. Highly recommend for native/natural projects!