Have you run out of milkweed (swan plant) and been tempted to feed them an alternative? Please don't do it.
Monarchs are milkweed butterflies, and their host plant is milkweed.
Most butterfly species are 'linked' to a single plant species, which is the food source for their larval form (caterpillar). These plants are referred to as host plants.
When monarch caterpillars eat milkweed they absorb a variety of chemical compounds that make monarch caterpillars poisonous to potential predators. Milkweeds contain a cardiac poison (cardiac glycoside) that is poisonous to most vertebrates but does not harm monarch caterpillars. Various milkweeds have higher levels of these toxins than others.
In fact, cardiac glycosides are used in human medicine for treating heart failure and certain types of irregular heartbeats.
Have you watched a monarch laying eggs on your swan plant. Firstly, she tests the leaf for its suitability with her two forelegs called brushfeet. If it doesn't have the right balance of nutrients she moves on to another plant.
When we introduce hungry caterpillars to another food such as pumpkin or any other species in the cucurbit or gourd family, the caterpillars may eat it but they are not ingesting the food that they need. It's a bit like eating junk food ... our healthiest athletes don't eat junk food.
Asclepias and Gomphocarpus are a genus commonly known as milkweeds. They are in the Apocynaceae family. Pumpkins or squash are an entirely different genus (Cucurbita). Another plant which has been trialled as a host plant for monarchs in the past is Araujia sericifera, a fine which is a pest plant in NZ. It is closer to the milkweed genus, but not close enough to be a successful host plant. As well, A. sericifera has the common name of 'cruel plant' because it traps butterflies and moths by the proboscis, and they will be unable to free themselves.
Many of us have tried using alternative foods in the past. Monarchs fail to pupate or die in the latter larval stages. Butterflies emerge as weak specimens, with crippled wings, or unable to fly. And as well as those visible symptoms, we do not know what long-term damage we are doing to the species as a whole.
This makes life difficult, doesn't it. You have too many caterpillars and not enough swan plant. There are some excellent tips on how to best utilise the swan plants you do have on our website here.
As well as those tips, NOW (when you are reading this) is the time to plan for swan plants for next year. Plant them now and keep them covered so you'll be able to see more magnificent monarchs next year.
Aphids are very much a part of the complex natural jigsaw that is your garden. We need to understand the part they play in a 'butterfly habitat'.
In an earlier blog post I stressed how everything in Nature is connected. When you have swan plants (or milkweed), oleander aphids (Aphis nerii) will soon find your plants. Aphids, bright yellow, pear-shaped insects, only a few mm long, with their soft bodies, will suck the juices from your plants, causing them to wither and fail. They particularly like the tender, young, new shoots or plant tips of your plants.
Just when you're imagining how many monarch caterpillars will be able to dine on your plants, the aphids arrive and start to play havoc with your 'crop'. By piercing the cell wall of leaves and stems to suck the sap they weaken the plant, leaving a wound that can allow disease to get in.
Normally, with a healthy swan plant, the aphids will do no more damage than when we graze our knee. A healthy plant can withstand aphids, but weaker plants go downhill quickly.
Because you want your swan plants to be free of chemicals you cannot reach for a commercial product. You have to help Nature using natural means.
When you first see an aphid or two observe and do your research. Don't reach out for a pesticide, just observe, read up about aphids, be vigilant and patient.
Are your plants well-watered but not standing in wet ground? Run your finger over the soil – if it comes away dusty the plant needs watering. (Muddy? Probably not.) Are they well fertilised, mulched? Do they have plenty of room? If they're in a pot, check that the roots aren't bursting out the bottom. If you see a tangle of tiny roots the plants should be in a larger pot.
Don't grow all your swan plants in the same place, year after year. Each plant species removes certain nutrients from the soil. By growing different plants on the same piece of land it improves soil health, optimises nutrients in the soil and combats pest and weed pressure. This will lead to healthier swan plants, more resistant to disease. (This is called 'crop rotation'.)
While you're waiting patiently to see what is going on, there are some actions you can take without interfering too much. High-pressure hosing the aphids will remove them from the plants. So will squishing them with your fingers – wear gloves if you don't want your fingers stained orange. Or you can also cut the piece of plant that is infected with aphids and put it in a plastic bag and straight into your waste system (or you could wash the stem and leaves you've cut off, and feed it to monarch caterpillars.) But remember, if you see signs of other life with your aphids, you need to stop immediately and let Nature take its course.
Encourage beneficial insects – the kind that will get rid of the 'bad guys'. Some of these work from the outside (predators) while others work from within (parasites).
Most ladybird species will eat aphids. After the first aphids arrive in your garden you might notice ladybirds arrive. Aphid larvae look like tiny lobsters. Both the adults and the larvae eat aphids – ladybird larvae can eat up to 400 aphids in 2-3 weeks. And a female ladybird will lay more than a thousand eggs in her lifetime. (Yes, they might also eat a few butterfly eggs as well.)
Watch out, also, for ants. Ants encourage aphids, because aphids secrete a sugary fluid called honeydew which ants use as food. Ants also eat insect eggs. Honeydew has a negative effect on the plant, inhibiting photosynthesis, which can affect growth. Honeydew also provides a good breeding ground for fungi, especially the fungus called sooty mould.
See what I mean: everything's connected!
Some people use a product called ant sand to control ants, or if your plant stands alone you can wrap sticky tape around the base to prevent ants from climbing up.
My favourite control for aphids is a parasitic wasp called Aphidius colemani. (Yes, it is a wasp, and yes it's a 'good guy'. There are probably over 2,000 wasps in NZ and only a few are pests.) Female A. colemani lay their eggs inside aphids, and when the egg hatches the wasp larva eats the aphid from the inside. Eventually more wasps emerge and of course when they mate, they lay eggs in other aphids. Soon your aphid 'problem' will be no more!
You need to watch out for aphid 'mummies' – these are the aphids in which the wasps are growing. You don't want to remove them! That's when you should squishing or high-pressure hosing and leave Nature to do the job for you.
A. colemani are probably already present in your garden, if your garden is a friendly place for them. Don't use chemical controls. Tiny flowers like alyssum, coriander, dill and parsley will attract them. They are perfect for A. colemani and other tiny beneficial insects.
If you don't think you have any – remember these are tiny, wee wasps – you can buy them from a supplier such as Bioforce, an IPM (integrated pest management) specialist. Mummified aphids arrive by courier and you leave them in the garden near the infected plants.
Check out our video HERE.
If you see aphids on your swan plants, it’s very important to look out for the natural controls already at work. If you use any manufactured ‘control’ then you will be throwing everything out of balance.
Aphids don’t bother butterflies. Butterflies have no sense of aesthetics. And the wasps won't hurt anything else in the garden. Practise patience, wait and be vigilant, and learn about what’s going on in your garden.
Thanks to Bioforce, Nicholas Martin and The NZ Institute for Plant and Food Research Ltd for photos.
Want to know more? Interesting video here
There were five entries in our T-shirt contest which we ran in conjunction with Print Mighty. The winner will receive their T-shirt printed free of charge, colour and style according to their wishes. And the product will go into our store!
Here are the entries in alphabetical order of the artist's name! Jill Quigley's shirt had a back and a front, and is self-explanatory I think. Love it! We've called it METAMORPHOSIS.
Here's Leah's entry which we've called PURIRI as it has a front and a back featuring our beautiful puriri moth.
Maanvir (8) and his sister, Mishika aged 10, each designed a shirt! Aren't they clever! Love their use of colours.
Olivia is a 9-year-old eco-warrior ambassador from Cockle Bay Primary School, Auckland. She told us: "I love all animals, flowers and trees. And am a future guardian of this land." Great work Olivia! And of course, the name we've given this shirt is WILD CHILD.
Yvonne Wallis submitted two very clever designs, and hers make up our list of entries!
Here's how to vote! Vote for your favourite designs by leaving a comment below this blog post, referring to the name of the T-shirt. You may cast multiple votes if you can't decide on one. You can also vote on our Facebook or Instagram pages (links at the bottom of the blog page).
Voting closes 5pm, Tuesday 30 November. One person will WIN their own T-shirt printed by Print Mighty free of charge, colour and style according to their wishes.
Monarch numbers tend to see-saw up and down, as do populations of any species in a biological community or ecosystem. Scientists often refer to the 'boom and bust' of a population.
The boom is when the population grows exponentially rapidly, but is then followed by a bust (when the population falls back to a minimal level). It's rather like a roller coaster. Everything depends on the natural predators and parasites in that particular ecosystem, plus the weather, landscape and natural events.
Did you ever consider that a monarch caterpillar is a predator? They are herbivores... and can rapidly destroy milkweed.
Where there is plenty of milkweed (e.g. swan plant) the monarch will thrive - but so will the aphids. Other monarch predators and parasites will also thrive so this depletes the monarch population. Take a look at this chart and you can see how everything is connected.
When the MBNZT has done research in the past, because we have heard that there is a dearth of monarchs, we also get many people saying 'but I've raised hundreds' etc. And... it is the people who believe they are seeing LESS monarchs that get in touch as they are concerned. The people who feel they are seeing more monarchs do not, of course, raise an alarm. So it is very hard to judge.
The sad thing is that a lot of people are trying to 'help' the monarch population by raising hundreds, even saving diseased monarchs, which of course does not help the monarch at all... it just helps the disease thrive, and weakens the monarch population.
This is why the MBNZT is keen to have more of our members (and non-members) participate in MLMP (Monarch Larva Monitoring Project), a citizen science project involving monarch-lovers in NZ. In previous years this project has only been open to volunteers from North America but now New Zealanders can participate and provide useful data for monarch research.
The programme was developed in 1997 by researchers at the University of Minnesota to collect long-term data on larval monarch populations and milkweed habitat. Find out more under the RESEARCH tab on this site.
However, I personally believe that there are fewer butterflies around now than there were 30 or 40 years ago. I am not talking about in my garden but generally, around NZ. Monarchs depend on humans planting and growing milkweed - and humans are concentrated in urban areas. When I was young (I'm now in my 70's) I would see more butterflies in urban areas than I do today.
Male monarchs tend to hang around the milkweed patch (swan plant) as it is where they will find females... laying eggs. Female monarchs can smell milkweed from up to 2km away so when they have laid eggs on one swan plant (and possibly mate with a male or males) they will move on to milkweed nearby and so on, moving around and about the community.
Ten or 20 years ago I would see more on a drive from one side of Auckland to another... or passing through urban areas as I travelled around the country, than I do today.
Another thought is the number of people who comment after I've given a talk to a gardening club or service organisation, that they remember the number of different butterflies (and other insects such as dragonflies) when they were growing up that they don't see today.
We need to do more research! Or rather, we need more citizen scientists! Will you help us?
Over the past 4-5 weeks my cinerarias have been delighting me... and the occasional butterfly has stopped by to enjoy them too. Cinerarias are a winter-spring flowering annual, and once they're growing in your garden they will emerge each season with their large, round and very soft leaves.
You can also buy them in the stores - but these have been 'improved' so they don't set seed. Now that the cineraria season is over I won't remove the sad-looking plants to the compost heap just yet.
Each day I'm collecting the seed and while a lot is also being blown around the garden, I'll make sure I scatter some where I would like more plants to grow next season... such as the habitat project in the Blockhouse Bay Recreational Reserve.
It's easy to collect the ripe seed although it's so tiny. When it's ready for collection the flower will die and the seed is attached to silky filaments.
I 'pinch' each little fluffy pompom and transfer the contents to a paper envelope. Job done!
I'm not sure if it would be best to scatter this seed now or next year... but I figure Nature does it now so it probably is the best time to do so.
What's your thoughts?
If you grew up in New Zealand then chances are that you will recognise the monarch butterfly. In the 1950’s, when I was at primary school, every classroom had a Nature Table. Each Spring someone would bring in some monarch caterpillars on swan plant.
But here’s a few facts you probably never knew about them!
Did you know you can tell the difference between a male and a female monarch? It’s not so easy with other species of butterfly, but monarch males have two scent glands which appear like black dots on their hindwings. The veins on female monarchs are also thicker than on the male.
Monarch butterflies are believed to have introduced themselves to New Zealand in the 19th century, with the earliest written records dating from European settlement. In North America, east of the Rocky Mountains they make a spectacular migration each Autumn (Fall) from as far north as Canada to join millions of monarch butterflies in reserves in the mountains of Mexico’s Transvolcanic Belt. It is the most amazing migration to witness! Some butterflies have flown 5,000 kilometres!
A cluster of monarchs in the Sierra Chincua Santuario Mariposa Monarca, Michoacán, Mexico
NZ does not have a large number of butterfly species that they can call their own but we do have about 2,000 moths, of which over 90% are endemic!
All butterfly and moth species need two types of plants: The females of each species lay eggs on ‘host plants’, which vary depending on the butterfly. I think everyone knows that the cabbage white lays eggs on brassicas like your cabbages and cauliflowers. The monarch, of course, lays eggs on swan plants, so called because the seed pods resemble swans before they split open, the wind scattering their seeds.
Did you know that the swan plant originated in Africa? It is believed that quite possibly the seed arrived in NZ as a ‘stowaway’ inside a pillow, cushion or garment which was bought by settlers visiting ports on their journey here. The fibre attached to the seed has been used for many years as a stuffing material.
In fact, during WWII, when America joined the Allies, they needed kapok to fill thousands of Mae Wests (life preservers). As Indonesia was held by the Japanese there was no kapok available. So schools in the United States were called upon to send their students out into the fields to gather milkweed floss and it was actually found to have a better flotation score than kapok. This comic-style poster from 1941 tells the story - thanks to monarchflyway.com for sharing.
But I digress! The other type of plant that all butterflies need is a nectar source: bright, colourful flowers that are loaded with nectar. Butterflies are pollinators, like bees, so as they extend their proboscis deep into the centre of a flower they collect pollen which they then leave in another flower, allowing fertilisation of the flowers and in the end producing seeds or fruit. It is estimated that ¾ of our food depends on pollination!
This first blog post gives you a bit of background into what the MBNZT all about, the conservation of our New Zealand butterflies. Our mission (to engage with New Zealanders to ensure our biodiversity promotes a thriving moth and butterfly population) is so important.
I apologise for the length but hope you have the time to read it!
In 1975 – that’s a long time ago – I became concerned about what people (me and others) were doing to their environment. A group called Friends of the Earth put me in touch with the late Jeanette Fitzsimons (who went on to become the co-leader of the Green Party). She was an inspiration to me as I searched for more environmentally-friendly ways of living my life and raising my family.
Our mission... to engage with New Zealanders to ensure our biodiversity promotes a thriving moth and butterfly population
When I became a mother i did what my mother had done with me, spending time outdoors with my sons, letting their curiosity open their minds to Nature. We had fun finding out the answers to their questions, learning together. Visits to the library and phone calls to experts were the norm – we didn't have the advantage of the internet at our fingertips.
Butterflies were always a key focus as with the monarch we could watch the whole process of metamorphosis and learn about the relationship between flora and fauna, the interdependence of biodiversity. I began to understand that Earth’s ecosystems had evolved for millions of years, resulting in diverse and complex biological communities, all living in balance with the environment – the web of life. But today human activity has impacted Nature in every part of the world. Wild animals and plants are at risk of extinction. Deforestation and land degradation are causing lack of drinkable water and erosion. And climate change! The pollution from plastic! It’s tragic.
Back then, other parents began to ask me to visit their schools and kindergartens and teach about monarch butterflies. I began to realise there was so much I didn’t know… but the monarch is a wonderful teacher. With my family we visited Butterfly Bay which we’d been told was a prime overwintering site for the monarch butterfly in New Zealand. That was the early 1980’s.
25 years later I was living in Northland and I heard that Butterfly Bay was about to be developed. I didn’t want to see this ecosystem destroyed and thought it would be a good idea to liaise with the developer and ensure that they understood the significance of this beautiful corner of Aotearoa New Zealand. I asked three friends if they would help me form the Monarch Butterfly New Zealand Trust with the aim of protecting the monarch butterfly. In the end the development never went ahead but the MBNZT grew from strength to strength and morphed into the Moths and Butterflies of NZ Trust.
Meanwhile I was learning so much about our own beautiful butterfly and moth species. Did you know that NZ has about 2,000 species of moth – possibly more – and more than 90% of them are only found in this country (endemic)! We are short on butterfly species but what we do have are pretty amazing too.
Aotearoa New Zealand has over 2,000 species
Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand
of moth and over 90% of them are endemic.
What surprised me was how little people knew about our 'other' butterfly species. I had a sneaking suspicion about this so I stood outside a garden centre one day to do my own research… "What butterfly species did they know about in NZ?"
The answers: 'the monarch' (or sometimes it was the 'big orange one') and then 'that small white one which is a pest'. That was all. Very few people today knew about our other species.
More and more concerned about what's happening to our environment, this week I have been encouraged by a documentary series just released on the Stuff website titled This is How it Ends.
If you are still unconvinced about the fragility of our environment I encourage you to watch these
episodes about NZ’s unique biodiversity and how it is under threat. (Just click on the image above).
“We are at crisis point. Unfortunately, the way we feed and fuel our 21st Century lifestyle is unsustainable. We have fundamentally changed the planet. And it’s completely getting out of balance.”
Livia Esterhazy, WWF-NZ
Getting out of balance? No! Things are already WAY out of balance.
But how can we appreciate something we don’t know exists? How can we PROTECT a species if we don’t know it exists?
So much needs to be done for our butterflies and moths. (Of course, there’s so much that needs to be done for our environment… but we can only do so much.)
If you’re a butterfly lover, here’s a good place to start. The vision of the MBNZT is to ensure that Aotearoa New Zealand’s ecosystems support thriving moth and butterfly populations. Please join us if you can. Financial members help us by funding our projects (and they receive our magazine four times a year.) If you can’t afford to become a financial supporter sign up for our free e-news to receive tips that will help you make your own garden more butterfly-friendly. Other ways you can help us are to follow our blog and other social media channels.
We know you’ll enjoy the journey and be able to implement small steps in your lives which will change the future of Aotearoa New Zealand.
And I want to thank you for reading this far. I warned you it was a long one, didn’t I?
Future posts will be much shorter, I promise!
Jacqui Knight, Founding Trustee
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