If 480 Butterflies Visit Her Garden

A Principal Gardener’south v-year quest to increment pollinators by planting and conducting research with 30 varieties of milkweed in the Las Vegas area is showing some real results. This spring brought the get-go ever recorded jump sighting of Western monarch collywobbles laying eggs in Las Vegas. The eggs have since hatched, and 12 new butterflies were tagged and released Monday.

“There has never been a documented instance of reproduction in Las Vegas as role of the spring migration,” said Anne Marie Lardeau, a Master Gardener volunteer with University of Nevada Cooperative Extension, who is conducting the inquiry. “We get them in the fall, but accept never observed nor received reports of caterpillars in the spring before. Usually they ignore us, either only stopping to swallow or only flying over.”

Lardeau’southward piece of work has focused on the Western monarch’s attraction to milkweed plants, and the scarcity of the plants in the Las Vegas area. She says the butterflies migrate northward from Mexico and California in the leap and dorsum dwelling in the fall, leaving their eggs merely on milkweed plants forth the route both directions. However, the number of migratory butterflies is dwindling, milkweed is scarce, and the number of collywobbles that stay in one identify and accept more than diseases is growing.

Places to rest and nest

Lardeau began her studies in 2014 when Extension kinesthesia and staff discovered a blitz milkweed constitute that had been planted equally a native plant instance in the Botanical and Test Gardens at the Clark County Cooperative Extension Lifelong Learning Heart. At the time, Lardeau says researchers believed there were no monarch butterflies in Las Vegas, and the milkweed planters didn’t know the milkweed’s full potential. She and other Extension faculty and staff recognized the value of the plant in terms of attracting the butterflies, and began donating milkweed seeds and looking into growing more blitz milkweed and other varieties.

Today, Cooperative Extension supports several butterfly habitats of milkweed and nectar plants in their botanical garden, including 480 milkweed plants, representing 30 varieties, including six native to Clark County, 5 international varieties and 19 Southwestern native varieties.

“We have the best drove of milkweed,” she said. “And now, we’re seeing a lot more than monarch butterflies after thinking there weren’t whatsoever.”

Her goal is to make up one’s mind which plants are the all-time for the pollinators, which ones will grow well in residential gardens in Las Vegas, and overall monarch preference: the milkweed varieties they prefer, the ones they settle for, and the ones they snub. Having a monarch cull a constitute to lay eggs as part of the bound migration served every bit an exciting sign that her research is on the right rail.

Sowing seeds and spreading wings

However, Lardeau doesn’t want the milkweed and nectar plants to be express to the now five butterfly habitats throughout the Botanical and Test Gardens. She too wants to see butterfly gardens in backyards and schools effectually Las Vegas.

“This is a joint community effort to increase availability of milkweed in the Las Vegas surface area,” she said. “We want to provide the public with advice on tried and constructive ways to create butterfly gardens.”

She invited local residents to participate in the research project, providing them with free seeds from Extension’s milkweeds, instructions for planting and care, surveys to rail plant success, and classes on how to build the gardens.

“Native milkweed seeds are either rare or expensive,” she said. “In add-on, native milkweed is rare in the wild, and seeds cannot be collected on public country without a permit or on private land without possessor permission. So, nosotros’re really excited to make the seeds available for gratuitous.”

Lardeau warns against buying milkweed from anywhere, other than the Nevada Department of Forestry, as virtually are treated with pesticides, which will kill any caterpillars born on the plants.     Lardeau was recognized for her work in 2017, when she took home a Search for Excellence Award from the International Primary Gardener Conference, being awarded Second Place in the Research category.

The University of Nevada Cooperative Extension’s Botanical and Test Gardens are at 8050 Paradise Road in Las Vegas. Free packets of milkweed seeds are available to visitors. The gardens, including the butterfly gardens, are open to the public, free of charge. Cocky-guided tours are available 8 a.m. – 4:thirty p.g., Monday through Friday. From September to May, guided tours are offered at 10 a.one thousand. on Fridays. For more than data, visit the Clark Canton Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners website or call 702-257-5501.