Monarch kingdom
Summerside man turns back yard into way-station for migrating monarch butterflies
SUMMERSIDE, P.E.I. - Karl Doucette loves his garden.
The retired educator been in his Summerside for three years and has transformed his lot into a green oasis. Fifty varieties of roses grow alongside ornamental trees, shrubs and native plants.
“I’ve always been involved in gardening, and I’ve always liked a lot of wildlife,” said Doucette.
In a batch of ferns adopted from the Holman Ice Cream Parlour property, Doucette found a treasure - a rose sprout was tucked in with this leafy acquisitions.
In two short seasons, Doucette has it flourishing in his special soil mixture which he makes himself.
These days, his sheds are full of empty planters and he has geranium shoots and canna lily bulbs resting in the cool dark of his basement until spring.
Doucette has several large sandstone boulders throughout this property. One huge flat stone attracts birds throughout the winter as it heats up in the sunshine.
“You don’t stop learning when you retire.”
Next up on his learning list will be a monarch way-station.
He has partnered with the Bedeque Bay Environmental Association to plant a monarch butterfly way-station in one corner of his yard.
The monarch population is declining rapidly, said Tracy Brown, executive director with BEMA.
“The monarchs are a species at risk. In the last few years their populations have been crashing substantially,” she said.
“One issue, obviously, is the loss of their habitat.” Around 10 years ago common milkweed was declared an invasive in the United States and the plant was ripped out.
But since butterflies rely on common milkweed on for critical life events and the population plummeted.
Adult monarchs breed and lay eggs on milkweed; when the caterpillars hatch, they survive exclusively on milkweed and when it’s time to cocoon, they spin a chrysalid within the milkweed leaves, said Brown.
P.E.I. has a unique chance to help out.
“On P.E.I., we don’t have common milkweed as a native [plant], we have swamp milkweed. So our milkweed is quite unique in the fact that it doesn’t want to be high and dry. It likes to have wet feet,” said Brown.
Because it prefers wet areas, it won’t encroach on other crops.
“Years ago, when our farmers used to be farming right down to the edge of streams, the milkweed was ploughed out and ploughed under,” said Brown.
“Now that we have the legislation, and the farmers are out of the stream, we’re working with landowners to try and go back and put the milkweed in the wetlands.”
Urban dwellers like Doucette have a big role to play too.
“There’s more opportunity for diversity of flower populations in the city,” said Brown.
But spraying insecticides is a big deal.
“If you’re in a city, [spraying] has a bigger impact on pollinators… Because a lot of pollinators are condensed in city areas.”
Rural areas can be dominated by single-crop agriculture and use, and don’t have much plant diversity. There are about three times as many pollinators in urban landscapes as in rural areas, because of gardeners like Doucette, said Brown.
For the last five years, BBEMA has been watching four monarch way-stations at their offices in Emerald. Now they have enough caterpillars to share some with Doucette.
“It doesn’t matter where the caterpillars hatch,” said Brown. “Wherever the butterfly comes out of that chrysalis, they magnetically imprint on the location and that’s where they’re going to come back to.”
The plan is to bring the caterpillars from Emerald to Doucette’s milkweed in Summerside where they will munch away before they make their chrysalis.
Doucette’s way-station will conform to international standards and will be listed on monarchwatch.org.
Doucette will also plant a trial run of BBEMA’s 15-seed wildflower mix in the coming summer.
“It’s nice to have a landowner like him that’s really dedicated,” said Brown.
Doucette watches over every part of his green kingdom with interest and attention and Brown will consider his feedback before BBEMA puts the mixture elsewhere. Brown is welcoming more gardeners or landowners to set up a way-station. Winter is the right time for planning and Brown is happy to work with Islanders who want to help the monarchs.
“Sometimes we’re not saving the species, we’re saving the whole phenomenon of what that species can do and what it means,” said Brown.
“To some, it’s one flower garden. To others, it’s a whole network.”