The call to plant milkweed — while easily sharable and actionable — is greatly reductionist and oversimplified. Maybe even harmful in some ways. I don’t see it as a baby step or gateway, I see it as a sleight of hand.Telling folks to go get some milkweed for their small foundation bed is like telling folks to get some wheat bread crust for dinner. Monarchs need an entire native plant community — host plants AND nectar plants. And they need other interactions that occur in a dense, layered native plant community; interactions involving other species, interactions in the soil, interactions among the plants. Health and life is more than one genus of plants. And besides, there are many insect species at greater risk than monarchs, but we aren’t planting for them.
My concern is folks will rush to plant milkweed and, like so many other of their garden plants, maroon them in a sea of wood mulch with plants spaced far apart. Milkweed, like most plants, did not evolve to grow by itself. Monarchs and milkweed need a plant community to thrive — especially over vast stretches of a landscape, well more than a city can provide.
Monarchs also, most importantly above all else, need an end to burning fossil fuels as well as big agriculture as it’s implemented now. Monarchs need MASSIVE systemic change to our society and culture at breakneck speed, not a “plant more milkweed” panacea that makes us feel better for a moment, but doesn’t really practically address issues that will make a lasting difference for monarchs and so much more. Climate change is increasing occurrences of drought along the Mississippi flyway that stretches from Mexico to Canada, and it’s decimating fir trees in the overwintering grounds of the oyamel forest of central Mexico while also creating a risk of exposure to freak storms that bring cold rains and snows. And then there’s the illegal logging.
I recently drove from the arrowhead of Minnesota to Des Moines, along the so-called I-35 Monarch Highway. There was a lot of mowing going on. In mid summer. About peak larvae action time. If we can’t manage those small strips for wildlife rearing, what hope do we have in the monoculture fields beyond them?
Speaking of Iowa, it’s at the center of monarch reproduction in summer (estimates are that around 38% of eastern U.S. monarchs come from the northern Midwest, the so-called corn belt and the largest slice of the pie). For those who don’t know, over 99% of the tallgrass prairie is gone in Iowa and it’s nearly as dire in neighboring states. Without those plant communities — and the milkweed found within them — what hope should we have?
This post is not to douse the flames of people rushing to spread the good news about milkweed — most of us here already know the benefits of milkweed and native plants. But it is the idolatry over one charismatic butterfly species, and the subsequent narrow perspective on what the “solution” to “helping” them is, that becomes highly problematic if we’re not willing or able to address the underlying or fundamental issues at play here. (And don’t get me started on folks killing tussock moth larvae or milkweed beetles so there’s more milkweed for monarchs to eat.)
No, you by yourself can’t go convert 25% of Iowa from corn to prairie or get the U.S. to transition away from oil and coal. Yes, putting in more milkweed and a native plant garden in your suburban landscape is much more actionable and will get people talking / thinking (even though that can already feel like a mountain to climb for many — what’s native, what will work, what about the HOA, etc, all stuff we try to cover here and at the website as best we can).
What monarchs need is a revolution of compassion that draws a line against human privilege and supremacy, that says no more to this culture of waste and greed and violent colonization that’s as suicidal as it is genocidal. And make no mistake, monarchs won’t vanish even if the two great migrations in North and Central America do (migration distances that many other butterfly species make around the world).
Don’t just plant more milkweed. Call us all out on why we need more milkweed, more goldenrod, more aster, more bluestem, more coneflower, more prairie clover, more sedge. Call out our lawns. Call out our parking lots. Call out our farm fields. Call out our coal trains. Call out special interests that have taken over our system of government. Do what you can where you can — a pot on an apartment deck, a front yard lawn, a YouTube channel, a farmer’s market, a city council meeting, your close personal friend Bill Gates.
And don’t just talk milkweed — folks can handle the complexities, we’re a highly-evolved species with immense hearts and immense brains. None of this is easy. It takes as much physical action as it does some complex personal, emotional reflection (and book reading) as we work for a healthier future. What are you going to risk in your life today to rewild your community?
[This post will surely evolve over time — it’s full of raw thoughts and emotions that will probably become a larger essay some day. Please keep comments civil and constructive without hyperbole.]This post was originally published here at Monarch Gardens, where it received many comments.
Well said, Benjamin!
Well said.
Thank you for the list of plants to plant, some I know, some I will have to look up. Been growing milkweed for years but not the others, and organic..no pesticides.
Fewer price points of vastly superior quality. Need smaller more affordable houses. What we get are Toll McMansions and accountants for CEO.
I agree with much of what Benjamin says in this article. I’m glad that he is optimistic about the survival of monarchs: “And make no mistake, monarchs won’t vanish even if the two great migrations in North and Central America do (migration distances that many other butterfly species make around the world).”
In fact, that’s exactly what’s happening in California where monarchs are adapting to climate change by abandoning their migration and winter diapause in favor of breeding during the winter months and staying put on the coast, where they spent the winter in diapause in the past. Monarchs don’t migrate in many places in the world, such as Central and South America, the Caribbean, Australia, and even in parts of Europe and New Guinea.
However, Benjamin’s assumption that monarch and other insects require native plants is mistaken. Academic entomologists credit the resurgence of the monarch population in California partly to the growing popularity amongst gardeners of non-native tropical milkweed that is evergreen and therefore available during winter months when deciduous native milkweed is not.
Unfortunately native plant advocates have succeeded in getting non-native tropical milkweed designated a “noxious weed” and its sale banned in four counties in California. Academic entomologist have pushed back against this harmful ban in an article published by The Monterey Herald, San Jose Mercury, Marin Independent Journal, and East Bay Times:
• “Hugh Dingle, a retired University of California at Davis entomology professor who has studied monarch butterfly migration for more than two decades, said the bans are “basically a wasted effort” and that the focus should be on larger threats such as pesticide and herbicide use. All species of milkweed carry parasites that can affect monarch populations, Dingle said.”
• “Arthur Shapiro, a UC Davis professor who has studied monarch butterflies for the past six decades, described the rationale behind the bans as “hogwash.” Shapiro, Dingle and other researchers said winter breeding among monarch butterflies is a relatively new behavior and one influenced by warmer winter temperatures caused by climate change.”
• “David James, an associate entomology professor at Washington State University who has studied monarch butterfly breeding and migration in the Bay Area, said there is a case to be made about the tropical milkweed as being a vital resource for the monarchs in a changing climate.”
• “Leslie McGinnis, a UC Berkeley doctoral candidate studying monarch populations and working with gardeners in the East Bay, said the bans take a “simplistic view” of the threats that monarchs face, including the fact that many native milkweed plants supplied to nurseries can also be sprayed with pesticides. The bans, she said, can work to disenfranchise or demonize people that have tropical milkweed who instead could be partners in working to help restore monarch populations.”
The fact is, vegetation changes when the climate changes. Insects are adapting to these changes in the environment and their survival depends on their ability to adapt. Let’s not get in their way.
Thank you!
Mr Vogt is attacking what amounts to an environmental marketing tool: get the public on board not by serious, studious analysis, but with an appealing, easy, quick fix. The issue is whether such shallow emotional appeals (including the baby seals, elephants, honeybees etc in the past) are actually counterproductive or just a waste of time and resources? At least planting milkweed or any other wildflower for that matter means people go outside…that alone has to be a good in this time and place. Will it change anything in the long run? of course not.
Isn’t planting the right milkweed for your zone still a good idea?
I agree. I read your first book and your blog. I agree! I’ve tried hard to have a yard that welcomes insects, not just monarchs. However, there are tons of people who aren’t gardeners, environmentalists, entomologists, etc. They don’t care, and I worry it may be too late. Drove recently from Texas to Indiana and back through Arkansas, Missouri, and Illinois.There should have been tons of dead insects on the windshield. There weren’t. We even got lost and drove through the countryside for miles. Few insects on the windshield. I worry. Where are they?
Most people who seriously advocate for the monarchs make many of the points that you make here, Ben. Or at least this one does. Planting milkweed is just the beginning, but it’s a darn good one, given that it’s the ONLY host plant for the species and is crucial for their reproduction. My hope is that people don’t read what you wrote and back off from whatever they’re doing to help monarchs, planting milkweed included (even if that’s all they do). Those who are committed and serious about it, will read further and understand the full intent of your post. Preaching to the choir, you know. But sadly, in this day and age of short attention spans that can only handle so much at once, many others will not.
Yes, it’s up to us to provide the whole story and not focus on one plant or one species, but I will tell you this – the monarch totally changed the way I looked at the environment, not just the monarch itself. There is a lot of merit in that and I’m sure I’m not the only one who came to Jesus about the major changes we need to make in our lifestyles and consumer habits in order to help not only the monarch but so much more. In my presentations, I hope that is one big takeaway that people have. If the monarch is a way to get them started on their way, then so be it. It’s often a process and a journey.
Kylee, I agree, the concern about monarchs has been the gateway to a broader interest in the environment and better gardening practices. I also very much appreciate Ben’s article and am glad to see it here in The Rant.
I think it’s unfair to argue in hyperbolic, emotional terms, and then ask that your readers refrain from same. Monarchs may very well need to see an “end to burning fossil fuels as well as big agriculture as it’s implemented now,” in order to stop adapting their migration patterns to a changing climate; but sadly such radical change will come at a very real cost to billions of [privileged??] human lives in developing countries, for whom fossil fuels and modern agricultural methods currently mean the difference between life and death. While I fully agree that the uber-focus on milkweed is reductionist and simplistic, and laud the general call to look at the big picture (as long as it’s all of it), I cannot agree that what Monarchs need is a “revolution of compassion” or further “emotional reflection.”
On one hand, the post-industrial Western world has never been more unapologetically compassionate in our approach to the Earth and awareness of its creatures; and we’re getting a lot of things right as we work towards better stewardship of our incredible planet. We are not there yet, but we’re certainly not where we were. On the other hand, while we proclaim the values of compassion and awareness as a culture, many only personally follow that mantra insofar as they are not inconvenienced by it – chief amongst them the powerful-but-righteous. Once Bill Gates lives in ONE home, with perhaps two cars (and hell, I’ll even allow a large guest cottage for his charter-jet setting friends), I’ll consider his opinion or desire his influence in setting energy policy for the rest of us mere mortals to follow.
It is worth considering that giving gardeners – and more importantly, non-gardeners – less mountains to climb might just result in more people inspired and empowered to do the best they can to thoughtfully re-green the earth. More YES and less NO. Perhaps all they can manage right now is a little milkweed in a subdivision lot; but in time, and with gentle, kind, encouragement, it may become much more. – MW
I think what you have personally done in your garden is amazing and inspiring, but I don’t think you have a good grasp on the needs and concerns of ordinary people. What circles do you travel in that people who “idolize” Monarch butterflies are a major concern for you? (Isn’t your design business called Monarch Gardens?) And accusing those who endorse planting milkweed of practicing “sleight of hand” is downright bizarre, as if these folks (who are on your side!) have sinister motives. I have never seen anybody suggest planting milkweed in a “sea of mulch” but even they did, so what? Lastly talk of “human privilege” will get you nowhere. Do you really think you are going to inspire people to care about the natural environment if you tear down humanity? You made a comment on your blog to a reader that people who don’t wear masks during a pandemic will help to “cull the herd.” You rail against our “culture of waste and greed” but your website sells t-shirts and stickers. Disingenuous to say the least.
I wonder if there could be some actual research done to quantify the effect of milkweed planting messaging to the general public? I do question how planting local, native milkweed could be harmful. Even a single Asclepias tuberosa in a garden is a good thing, and could possibly be a great thing. Milkweed tends to be a natural scatter plant anyway. Milkweed, in my experience, has been an excellent conversation starter with non-gardeners, so until we have academic research to prove otherwise, I will remain on the bandwagon. In almost every garden I have influence over, I’ve found to put it. I also include different varieties of mistflower, which I can guarantee will bring Monarch’s and Queens to a North Texas garden. I also use some adapted plants that are not invasive and provide ecological benefits in suburban gardens. Once homeowners enjoy their first fall butterfly show, they are much more open to shifting away from the mow/blow/trim/non-native practices of the past. New gardeners grow faster on success and joy. I appreciate Benjamin’s perspective, watch his YouTube channel and have purchased a couple of books, but my appreciation comes with caution that much fire and brimstone may put some people off, particularly when you’re preaching to the GardenRant choir.
We’re all friends here, so I’m glad we had the chance to discuss.
Mary Gray, thank you for saying what I was thinking. Mr. Vogt is not helping himself by reinforcing the stereotype that environmentalists hate humanity.
Here’s a thought
Preserve and protect established milkweed populations.
Just saying
Kat Myers
Laws require highway right of way mowing twice a year. This is to minimize fire danage from cars, sight lines and impact damages from collisions… Each state has guidelines and/or requirements to plant native eco types on the right of way (thank you Lady Bird Johnson). In Nebraska the species and eco types change.as you go east—west and north-south refluxing soil and rainfall. For examples, one change zone is in the 45 miles between Lincoln and Omaha. Growing seed for the dept of roads is a nice income source for agricultural/ horticultural producers for those who do it and their farms are incredible havens of pollinators. This is true for all States.
Thank you. Well done. Thank you also for the list of plants to plant, some I know. I tried to raise some Butterflies this year, and I planted a variety of flowers. I am still learning.
We had 4 hatch in our garden this fall that we watched and others I am sure we’re around also…we have many native plants including milkweed. Also we use no pesticides
Uhm, big agg and vegans, how can you compromise? no agg and what’s next? U can’t have it both ways. Not gonna even mention meat. I have been very successful with my milkweed, bee balm purple cone flowers, black eye Susan’s etc. I have full blown insect condos and had 21 successful youths this season.i live where the prairie meets lake and I choose to do it my way. If it comes down to us or the monarchs, I choose us. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Awareness is the key and the more people are getting into it the better. No such thing as too much native milkweed. Sorry, but i do like some of the things you mentioned. Big agg is still a good thing. Being from neb, you should know better.
We need to change mindsets (and HOA policies) re green lawns. Too many chemicals used for that and so much wasted water. Instead plant the goldenrod, asters, sages and bee/butterfly friendly plants. Better all around.
Ok, here’s a different perspective. I’m a farmer, mainly corn and soybeans. Also have CRP acres, pollinator plot, timber acres, both improved and unmanaged. This summer, like many, see many monarchs almost everyday, some days lots. They can do well right next to traited corn if the milkweed plants are there. Here, we are trying to get more swamp milkweed started to compliment the good numbers of common milkweed. Lots of us have a good number of acres with diverse wild plant communities. I’d argue one of the biggest mortalities monarchs face is on the highway. Used to travel Hwy. 218 in Iowa in mid September. Trying to estimate the number of monarchs hit per minute per mile in the 1990s daytime would be a mind numbing number imo. There’s an est. 8 billion people currently on the planet. Big Ag isn’t ending any time soon. More reasonable targets are possibly increasing diversified acres, and possibly building a better bug deflector. Just some thoughts.
Linda Chalker-Scott is Associate Professor of Horticulture at Washington State University. In 2015 Chalker-Scott published a meta-analysis of 120 studies from 30 countries that quantified the biodiversity of birds, insects, mammals, reptiles in woody plants and trees in urban landscapes. She concluded, “the science does not support the supposition that native plantings are required for biodiversity…it is clear that an automatic preference for native trees when planning in urban areas is not a science-based policy.”
In 2018, Chalker-Scott followed up with the an article addressed to home gardeners, giving practical advice about making their gardens welcoming to wildlife . Here’s her answer to the rhetorical question of her title:
“Gardeners increasingly seek out native plant species for their gardens and landscapes. Many believe that native plants are better choices because they are adapted to local conditions. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), among other federal, state, and local agencies, perpetuates this belief by making many unscientific statements about native plant benefits. Among these claims are that native plants are superior to introduced species in their ability to withstand local climate conditions, to resist pests and disease, and to require less water, fertilizer, and other forms of maintenance (EPA 2017). None of these claims have been supported in published research relevant to home gardens and landscapes.” file:///C:/Users/Owner/Desktop/Chalker-Scott%20Are%20Native%20Trees%20and%20Shrubs%20Better%20Choices%20of%20Wildlif e%20in%20Home%20Landscapes.pdf
But non-native trees can’t host insects the same way native trees can; Doug Tallamy’s work demonstrates that.
It takes a ripple to make a wave.
Just stumbled across this site, and your article was the first I read. Though I had no milkweed in my garden last year, I still had quite a few Monarch butterflies in the garden. They were quite fond of the Mexican sunflowers.
I perceived long ago that where Nature is concerned, we have a death-oriented culture. Tree in your way? Kill it. Patch of “weeds” blooming on the side of the road? Mow it down. Want to develop a lot? Clear-cut it and then remove the topsoil for good measure. Hedgerow in your field? It’s in your way: plow it down. It’s easy and, most important, CHEAP to kill things, so that’s what we do.
It’s so deeply engrained in us, it feels ordinary and normal, and NOT to kill things in the Natural world seems weird and bizaare. But it’s the one thing we have to change, and to look for solutions that are as good for Nature as they are for humans.