One Thing You Can Do for Monarch Butterflies This Fall
It's mid-September here in Central Ohio and we've had monarch butterflies flitting around our yard in larger numbers for several weeks now. There's one thing in our yard that they - and all the other pollinators - love in our yard right now: asters. I'll get back to that in a minute.
As you may or may not have heard, this is the time of year that the Eastern Migratory Monarch butterfly makes its epic journey to the Oyamel Fir forests in Mexico. Each fall, a special long-lived "super generation" of North American monarch butterflies flies up to 3,000 miles from the U.S. and Canada to overwinter in central Mexico, returning north in the spring over multiple successive generations. This "super generation" lives 6-9 months, versus the average 2-5 weeks for the summer generations. It's incredible!
It's because of this migration that September flowers matter. Milkweed gets most of the monarch attention because it's the host plant, but migrating adults need nectar, and late-blooming native plants become important fuel stations.
Want ONE easy way to help migrating monarchs NOW?
Bring home an aster.
Put it (or them!) in a pot or stick them in the ground.
Why an aster and not a mum?
For some reason, mums have gotten all the fall press. Don't get me wrong: I don't hate mums. Mumkins and big pots of mums on the porch are festive and beautiful fall décor.
But if I'm choosing a plant to help pollinators, I'm choosing the aster.
Many of the heavily doubled mums sold for fall color have so many petals that their nectar and pollen can be difficult for pollinators to reach. And because garden mums originated in Asia, they don't have the same ecological relationships with our native insects that native asters do.
Native asters, on the other hand, provide an important late-season nectar source right when migrating monarchs and other pollinators are looking for food.
So I'm not saying you have to banish mums from the front porch. I'm saying that if you have room for one more fall plant, make it an aster.
There are a variety of asters that you can plant, but the easiest to find here in Central Ohio are New England asters and New York asters. And honestly, you don't need to replace your entire landscape. Just do ONE THING right now: get some asters. As a bonus, asters will come back every year (perennials). So, if you have a spot for them in your landscape, plant them in the ground now. If you're short on time, plop them in pots for your fall décor and plant them later. If you don't have time for that either, compost them like you would the mums (which do have perennial varieties also, but no more nutritious) and start over next year. Wherever and however you add an aster, you'll be doing an amazing thing for late season bees and migrating monarchs!
calico aster New York aster Calico Aster American Aster Aromatic aster New England aster
One of my clients and I were chatting about monarchs the other day, and I mentioned asters. Lucky timing, because she was planning to buy mums that weekend.
She's buying asters instead.
She isn't ripping out her landscaping. She isn't turning her entire yard into a native plant garden overnight.
She just made one better choice.
And that's really the point.
Supporting monarchs doesn't have to feel overwhelming. If you're heading to the garden center for fall flowers anyway, bring home an aster. Give a migrating monarch one more place to stop, refuel and continue its incredible journey south.
One plant. One small change. One more little fuel station along the way.
Sometimes doing one thing really does matter.
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