Make a Home for Monarch Butterflies

I love Monarch Butterflies.  Much to my delight, I have seen more this summer than I have in a long time. They are beautiful and travel thousands and thousands of miles every year to winter and return northern locations for the spring. They are butterflies with a mission.

So if you would like to provide a happy place for Monarch Butterflies spend a few day and enjoy themselves.  What can you do?  What can you plant?

Milkweed and native flowers.

According to a story in the Sun Journal had some suggestions that do well in Maine:

Milkweed:  Common milkweed, Swamp (or rose) milkweed, Butterfly milkweed. These are food for the caterpillars.

Flowers:   Native flowers are food for adult monarch. While monarch caterpillars need milkweed, the adult butterflies need nectar from flowers. Black-eyed Susans,  New England asters, native bee balm, foxglove, beardtongue, blazing star, coneflowers (Echinacea species, not hybrids), goldenrod, nodding onion, ironweed and golden Alexander.

Maybe a little water source...and happy butterflies!