the monarch waystation

Monarch on swamp milkweed

I hadn't planned on creating a monarch waystation. Last weekend I rescued a few daylilies from the backyard where our fence was going in and quickly stuck them in a sunny spot near our mailbox, and I hit more plastic. This is an area of the yard that I hadn't planned on landscaping this summer, it's a border of dense beach roses (Rosa rugosa) where the rest of the yard was just bare mulch. At least it had plants, so it could wait. And I assumed since it had plants there wasn't any plastic sheeting, I was wrong.

 Of course I couldn't leave the plastic in and in tearing it out I discovered all the plants in this area, including the four foot high beach roses, were growing on top of the plastic. In getting out the plastic I ended up taking out a lot of the beach roses and suddenly had a nice patch of empty, sunny dirt.

Monarch on butterflyweed

That night I read an article in the summer edition of Country Gardens entitled "Of Milkweeds and Monarchs" (if I could find it online I would include the link) and its message about declining monarchs really struck home. The article sites many facts from monarchwatch.org, and I instantly went online and poured over their website. Simply put, monarch butterflies are in crisis for the following reasons:

• Roundup resistant crops now dominate the midwest, meaning about 100 million acres of corn and beans are now sprayed with the glyphosate, creating milkweed-free fields. Monarchs making their way from the north to overwinter in Mexico now navigate a 1000 mile near-nectarless, flowerless, waterless landscape from Kansas through Oklahoma, Texas and into northern Mexico. 
• Development of subdivisions, shopping centers, etc. now tops 6,000 acres a day. That's 2.2 million acres a year where there was often milkweed and other butterfly supporting plants. 
• Roadside management practices of mowing and herbicides now often creates monocultures of grass, not native wildflowers. 
• Illegal logging in the monarch's wintering forest in Mexico has diminished their former 23 acre habitat to a mere 5. 

Monarch on blazing star (Liatris)

It was clear what I had to do.  That nice, newly-cleared and plastic-free sunny patch was destined to be a monarch waystation (places that provide resources necessary for monarchs to produce successive generations and sustain their migration). In fact, the whole yard could qualify. I already planted nectar plants like blanket flower, sedum, beesbalm, blazing star and black eyed susans. I started a milkweed strain called butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosa) from seeds this winter and they're about 4 inches tall now and will be amazing in a few years. I just needed at least one more milkweed species to qualify as a certified "monarch waystation" with monarchwatch.org.

A few days ago I went out and purchased swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) and tomorrow a friend with a farm in Rowley is letting me take a few common milkweed plants (A. syriaca) from his unmown fields and then I will have all three species of native milkweed. Where there was once a monoculture of introduced beach rose there will now be milkweed, blanket flower, blazing star, yarrow, echinacea, cardinalflower, and Joe-pye weed. My three-year-old is now eagerly awaiting the appearance of those stunning little yellow and black caterpillars. She's already learned all about monarchs in her preschool and told me one day last fall that she just couldn't eat lunch because she was a monarch and was busy migrating to Mexico. I thought for her sake I would certify our new monarch waystation with monarchwatch and she could proudly display this sign.

As far as I can tell from the International Monarch Waystation Registry our waystation is the first certified in Ipswich, MA. I sure hope it's not the last. Stay tuned for photos of the finished, and flowering, monarch waystation.

That darn plastic!

 One of the most time consuming parts of our property's native landscaping project is the removal of an estimated 2400 square feet of plastic sheeting and about 4000 square feet of plastic landscape cloth we have inherited. I could leave it in place, but if my goal is to have the new perennials and ground cover fill in nicely then the plastic and landscape cloth must be removed. Its weed-blocking days are over. Plus, having 2400 square feet of impervious plastic under the soil is a terrible thing for a river bank property. In a heavy downpour the run off will go straight into the river and not soak into the soil, adding to flash floods and droughts.

This 750 square foot section of the back yard to the right is a giant square of mulch under which is a thick plastic tarp. In some areas the tarp is buried under 10 inches of mulch, in other areas it's poking right out of the ground (above). And in other areas there's fuzzy landscape cloth over the tarp. I'm leaving this section until later in the summer having learned how much work the plastic removal is.

Last week I removed a small ten by four foot section of double-layered landscape cloth from an area along my neighbor's driveway. You can see the disturbed mulch below and the pile of landscape cloth I removed. Roots from the nearby oak tree had woven themselves right through the cloth attaching it to the mulch and making removing it extremely difficult. This small section took me over an hour.

BEFORE

After the cloth was removed I enlarged the planting area by removing about 40 square feet of lawn along this bed (future post about lawn shrinking coming). I edged the whole area with bricks dug out from an old walkway in back which we're removing. Then I rewarded myself this weekend by planting this area out with a shade garden of foam flower, coral bells, soloman's seal, bearberry, leather wood ferns, white snakeroot and a lovely variegated hosta that was already here and I divided.

AFTER

 The almost-finished area is to the right. Once I move the old yew stumps sitting by the oak, and add mulch I will declare it done! I'm looking forward to seeing the foam flower and bearberry spread and fill everything out. In future years I hope this will be a beautiful and lush section of yard.