Marshall Hoffman
Stevens County Times
No one knows why monarch butterflies make their annual 3,000-mile migration from Mexico to southern Canada and the northern United States. But one local theory may be that spending time at the pollinator haven of Morris residents Mike and Kathy Buendgen is something that every monarch has to put on their butterfly bucket list.
For the Buendgens, it all started with a rain garden, which they had heard about through Stevens Soil and Water Conservation District some 10 years ago. Then they saw the agency’s display at the Stevens County Fair, and in 2013, they established a rain garden in the front yard of their East 2nd Street home with the intention of directing water away from the house (which it did).
“Some milkweed seeds flew into the front planter box,” Mike explained. When the plants had grown, “I wanted to take them out, but Kathy said to leave them alone.” Next thing they knew, there were caterpillars on the milkweeds. They pupated on their house, and from there onto the plants in the rain garden.
“After that, we were just hooked,” said Mike. Kathy said she has seen all stages of a caterpillar. “I’ve seen them emerge on my hands. It’s so cool.”
Kathy said they are getting to know what plants the butterflies like, and they search for plants that bloom in the second half of August through the first part of September, when adult monarchs are migrating. Over the years, as another rain garden was added in their front yard and additional gardens in the back yard, they have had plants supplied by Morning Sky Greenery and Anderson Acres.
Their favorite flower for attracting butterflies is the annual tithonia or Mexican sunflower. “They have cool orange flowers,” said Kathy. “Monarchs love them,” Mike noted that tithonia is not that popular in the flower shops because it’s a late bloomer, and by the time the shops can display them in bloom, the planting season is half over. But they will bloom all the way to frost.
Another popular flower in their garden is goldenrod, which usually flowers in September. “The bees are abuzz with the goldenrod,” joked Kathy. Their pollinators also enjoy their bee balm plants, cardinal flowers, ironweed, echinacea or coneflowers, and blanket flowers. The birds will eat the seeds of those last two in the fall.
The other two flowers on their pollinator hit parade are meadow blazing star – where they have sometimes seen five or six butterflies on a single branch – and common milkweed. Female monarchs will only lay eggs on milkweed, and caterpillars only eat milkweed.
The Buendgens get great pleasure from watching the migrating monarchs, which have a lifespan of about 9 months. “It’s fun watching them budge each other off a flower,” said Mike.
“They roost in the evergreens behind us,” Kathy said, as well as the pine trees on College Avenue, where they hang on the end of leaves. “Something startles them, and they all flutter.”
And one Sunday, they were about to go to church but got transfixed watching a chrysalis hatch, so they sat and waited for the new butterfly – in their Sunday best.
“It’s like a newborn baby when they come out,” Mike observed. “They’re all wrinkly and wet. There’s a spiritual aspect of it for us.”
Keeping up their garden takes plenty of work at their house, where they have lived since 2010. “We get winterkill, so we have to plant perennials more often than we’d like,” Kathy noted. “We try to keep it up and make it look nice because it’s very visible where we are,” added Mike.
Their efforts are indeed getting noticed. “What’s really amazing is when a college student walks by and puts down their cell phone and looks at the garden,” said Kathy. Mike agreed that it’s nice to hear a student say, “I always walk by your house to look at the garden.”
The Buendgens do their best to get the word out about helping these pollinators. Monarch butterflies, unfortunately, have slipped into the “endangered species” class due to habitat loss and the use of insecticides and pesticides. But some photos of their yard were featured in an episode of the Prairie Yard and Garden show on Pioneer Public Television. And Mike has put together a professional-grade PowerPoint presentation on monarch butterflies, which he presented to the Jane Addams Project on the University of Minnesota Morris campus. Since his retirement, Mike has volunteered with the cross-cultural discussion group and as an ESL teacher.
The Buendgens encourage others to provide a floral oasis for these wandering pollinators. “They need waystations to get food on their journey from Mexico to Minnesota,” Kathy stated.
