Your Personal Monarch Action Plan continued

• To create your personal

butterfly garden, add plants that take the monarch from tiny egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to fluttering-yet-forceful adult. For this, you need two main kinds of plants: those in the milkweed family and those with nectar-rich blooms. In fact, the Canadian Wildlife Federation has launched a range of pollinator seed packages in colourful assortments that fill the bill. You can buy them online and at major retailers like Home Depot and Canadian Tire. (Some of the proceeds go to fund CWF programs.)

• Milkweed host plants are the

key to boosting the actual monarch population. Monarch caterpillars feed on milkweed exclusively, so monarch moms must lay their eggs on plants in the milkweed family. Adult monarchs, meanwhile, get most of the food energy they need from plant nectar. For them, be sure to have a variety of plants that bloom continuously from early summer to late fall.

• Choosing where to plant your

garden is also crucial. You’ll want an area with six or more hours of sun and a spot that’s shielded from the elements. Create shelter by using different sized trees, shrubs and perennials, in addition to features like logs and stones. And don’t forget a sunning spot. Butterflies rely on the heat of the sun to go about their activities. Adding a few flat stones will provide places where they can get warm.

• Don’t be discouraged if all

you have room for is a small container garden or if you’d rather add a few plants to an existing garden — any amount of space can help monarchs. Just find out which plant species will suit your region and your soil and light conditions best. With any luck, future studies like Tyler Flockhart’s looking into the origins of individual butterflies in the forests of Mexico will point their way back to eggs laid in central and eastern Canada, at locations once barren but now restored.