Monarch Monitoring Project - 9/11/08

Greetings butterfly enthusiasts! Welcome to another year of the Monarch Monitoring Project blog! For those of you who don't know me, my name is Erin Cord and I am the new monarch intern for this fall. You may see me in the near future walking around Cape May with a giant bug net and a look of determination on my face. If you do, feel free to say hello, stop and chat, or inquire about the monarchs. I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible during my stay in Cape May.

The monarchs have only just started to arrive, and it should be a few weeks before they begin to come in droves. This week we had an average of 14.02 monarchs/hour. Hopefully this number will increase greatly as the month goes on. In the meantime I wanted to remind everyone a few things they can do to help our migrating friends when they do arrive.

The Art of Deadheading

What is deadheading, you ask? Simply put, it is the act of cutting off, literally, the dead flower heads of a butterfly bush (Buddleja sp.) Deadheading causes the plant to put it's energy into growing new flowers, instead of making seeds. The new flowers don't take very long to grow, and now is an opportune time to trim your butterfly bush. By deadheading today, you can be sure that there will be beautiful, nectar-filled flowers available for your monarch friends when they arrive in a few weeks. Having more flowers gives the monarchs more opportunities to eat and gain weight. This makes their chances of survival much greater as they travel to the roosting grounds in Mexico.

Deadheading is easy! Try to just trim off the old dead flowers and leave as much of the stem as possible. This way the new flowers will grow as fast as possible. Don't worry too much about over-trimming your plant though, butterfly bushes are very hearty and they will recover quickly.

For more info on butterfly bushes in general visit this website.

*(Also important to note that it is a great idea to cut your butterfly bushes back a good deal in early March, this way they will grow with all fresh flowers and bloom beautifully off this new growth.)*

So let's get deadheading, and make Cape May the best monarch migration stop-over point that it can be!!