I image there are other places doing this, but it was cool to see a story about this so close to home.
TLDR: park in the Finger Lakes region of New York (which is a grape-growing region) is going to purposefully keep a couple of their trees of heaven and pump them full of pesticides to mitigate the emerging threat of spotted lanternfly
I have been searching for different options because all I have been able to find is tropical. Zone 9. Is this a better option!?!? Asking for my VERY hungry caterpillars!!
It's dogshit.
I live in Florida and have recently released 31 monarchs. It was my first batch. I didnt get a "bird" as I call them until May 23. I now have more eggs than I can deal with and I used to be an organic farmer. I do love it so. Me and the plants vs the birds. I love it when I get an eat out where they eat all my milkweed, but that only happens outside rarely. There is very high death rate outside so I bring them inside. I'm planning to do a full 4 figures (thousand) this year. I'm training for 2028 LA Olympics even tho I'm just going to be a spectator. Maybe we could get butterfly gardening in the Olympics one day?
My monarchs lay more eggs creating a virtuous cycle only broken winter. I can keep them here over the winter too, but we had a horrible drought so I let it go last winter. Coming back at it and I will have birds in the air 365 until the opening ceremonies 2 years from now. Keep up the Lord's work yall
Rearing monarch butterflies is constantly being attacked, but research indicates that, if done responsibly, not only does it not harm wild monarch populations, but it could actually help them.
Read our sub's position here: https://www.reddit.com/r/MonarchButterfly/comments/1ui59g7/what_the_science_actually_says_about_rearing/
This rule applies to posts and comments.
Less ragebait but slightly more effort this time.
Out mowing the lawn this evening and saw this massive ( I think, atleast? ) mushroom while mowing. Measures about 6.5” across - is this a common, edible white mushroom, or?
Located in Eastern Canada (Northern New Brunswick).
Guess I am not welcome anymore. I thought this was a snarky gatekeeping community about bullying people who enjoy non native plants or encourage behaviors we deem irresponsible. Bonafide reddit moment. Time to wrap it up. Mods gone woke.
Tensions flared at my town's Pollinator Pathway chapter leadership committee last night - we have our plant sale on Sunday and one of the kindest/sweetest/most involved members is insistent on bringing captive reared monarch chrysalises and her display board to the booth. She's also very involved, generally awesome, and is just misled on the recent data suggesting that raising butterflies has a net negative impact. She thinks it's a matter of opinion and in her heart of hearts believes she is doing a good thing for Mother Nature.
Early in the committee meeting it started to devolve into a wicked uncomfortable discussion/argument with some perceived personal attacks, bled into the rest of the meeting, and she suggested she may leave the group. These are classic older gardening queens, big time conservation supporters/advocates and I felt awful while cleaning up 1-1 and emotional supporting our chapter president whose heartbroken she may lose a friend to this situation. We also both know that captive reared monarchs face a ton of challenges and isn't encouraged any more.
The challenge is - this woman is not only very well meaning and I love her dearly, she's also VERY active in the community and on other boards/groups/committees, her husband is involved in local politics, etc. I really would hate to see her go. Not that she'd sabotage us deliberately but the ramifications of losing her due to something like this wouldn't be great for our street cred as a recently founded tiny group in town. Its also just a huge bummer.
The consensus on captive breeding between this subreddit, Tallamy, Xerses foundation and every experienced/professional/legit speaker we've had as presenters is basically "its not really encouraged/promoted, despite being fascinating and really cool especially for kids and newbies. At scale it's not great for the population and should just be used as an educational too despite your heart being in the right place. Try to limit it but also probably don't do it. Sorry :/"
Wild and wacky Tuesday night in the world of retiree gardening lady drama and pretty ridiculous and funny but this is gonna be an issue.
...She's almost certainly bringing these things on Sunday. Its going to cause drama, and we don;t really want our group to promote this kind of thing even if the rest of us personaly really don't think its the end of the world if she does this at home. I don't do it and regularly/gently educate people on the risks. She has a bitchin native garden and this is clearly part of her overall passion about native plants. It will also draw people to the booth and probably help us sell more plants.
Any tips? lol
edit/update
- I know summer isn’t the best time for this - we got a tent for free at the weekly farmers market so it’s a smaller one mostly aiming for introducing our mission and getting folks involved. We are having our big plant sale event in the fall.
- lots of good advice, validation and reminders here - thanks everyone! at the end of the meeting we were all at relative peace and happy with each other. Im lucky in that this group is all chill people and it’s not just a battle of busy bodies.
It really just comes down to communicating to the folks that stop by that there are guidelines should you decide to breed monarchs and explain it’s for introducing this stuff to new people/for education/kids etc. The Butterfly lady is really cool and not an idiot and I’m fairly confident that she’ll have a moment of clarity about the risks of captive breeding butterflies.
I’ve been meaning to check out her garden and hang out with her because she’s hilarious and she loves wine so I’m gonna have to break out the schmooze.