This year we had a lack of monarchs in our garden; all of the monarchs we have raised so far have been from a teacher’s home garden. Unfortunately, we didn’t have very much milkweed when we were raising caterpillars; we think that’s why we didn’t have very many monarchs this year. Our goal of buying a seven-son tree will help attract more monarchs and pollinators.
Seven-son trees are shrub sized. When they are mature they grow from six to ten feet tall. They bloom in the summer through fall. Seven-son blooms come from the seven-son tree. They attract other pollinators like bees and hummingbirds. Our school’s bees will also benefit from these blooms.
We raised monarchs even before they hatched out of their eggs. When monarch caterpillars hatch, they are very small and almost unnoticeable. The first thing they do is chow down. The milkweed plant they are born on is usually the milkweed plant they will stay with until they come out of their chrysalises. They shed their skin five times before going into a chrysalis. They hang in a ‘J’ shape on a branch or leaf; they stayed in the chrysalis for about eight to fifteen days.
When they came out of their chrysalises we tagged them with a special sticker after they dried off their wings. Once tagged, the butterflies are spotted by people across the world. They report their appearance to Monarch Watch.
This is the sixth grader working on planting mexican sunflower also called a tithonia.
Recent Comments