A monarch flying toward Mexico can't fuel a journey of thousands of miles on milkweed leaves. What's growing in your yard helps decide if they make it.
Milkweed is caterpillar food. The caterpillars are done for the year. The butterfly crossing your yard this week is an adult who desperately needs nectar to keep going.
It has to reach central Mexico carrying enough stored fat to survive the entire winter without eating, then fly back north in spring. Everything it needs for that comes from the flowers it finds between here and there.
A yard full of milkweed and nothing blooming is a gap. So is an expanse of lawn with nothing else in it. So is a bed of mums, which are bred for petals at the expense of the nectar that used to be in them.
This is the good kush that actually feeds them:
1. Asters. New England aster is the heavy hitter. Aromatic aster blooms even later.
2. Goldenrod. Showy and stiff goldenrod stay clumped if you don't want the spreading kind.
3. Joe Pye weed. Tall, pink, and monarchs work it hard.
4. Ironweed. Deep magenta, holds color late.
5. Blazing star, boneset, sneezeweed, blanket flower. All still going.
Check for what's native in your region and what blooms in September and October.