Phillips 66 and the City of Bartlesville teamed up recently for a community project aimed at helping to restore the dwindling numbers of the monarch butterfly.
The familiar orange and black butterfly is known for its extraordinary annual migration of up to 2,000 miles one way. But “due to a variety of causes contributing to the loss of habitat and breeding grounds,” the monarch population has declined significantly — some estimate by as much as 90 percent — over the past two decades, according to the National Recreation and Park Association.
In an effort to restore the monarch population, the NRPA issued a “call to action,” urging communities to plant butterfly gardens with native wildflowers and milkweed, which is vital to the survival of the monarch.
Phillips 66 met the challenge head-on by sponsoring the project and working with the City of Bartlesville and Master Gardeners to plant milkweed in the City of Bartlesville’s Jo Allyn Lowe Park, located on Price Road east of Silver Lake Road.
“Phillips 66 is working with the National Recreation and Park Association to support their Monarch Challenge, a project to engage parks in planting butterfly gardens and contributing to the effort to restore the monarch population,” said Jenny Brown, Phillips 66 Bartlesville philanthropy advisor. “We have sponsored 100 monarch gardens that will be planted in several Phillips 66 communities. I’m so proud we have completed the Bartlesville garden now and appreciate the partnership with the City of Bartlesville and Master Gardeners.”
The garden is located in one of the park’s natural grassland areas, which is home to many native wildflowers and other plants — including several milkweed plants — attractive to the monarch and other wildlife.
“We can’t thank Phillips 66 enough for sponsoring this project,” said Bobby Robinson, City of Bartlesville Parks superintendent. “We appreciate the Phillips 66 team and the Master Gardeners who volunteered their time to plant the milkweed needed for this project and which is so essential to the survival of the monarch. They all did a great job.”
According to the NRPA, it is estimated that “more than 2 million acres of milkweed habitat is lost in the U.S. each year due to deforestation, development and use of herbicides.”
For more information about the monarch challenge, visit https://www.nrpa.org.
Photo: Kneeling, from left, Jennifer Galvin, John Hays and, in background, Kay Bjornen and Kyler Brown help plant milkweed at Jo Allyn Lowe Park recently. The project, sponsored by Phillips 66 with assistance from Bartlesville Master Gardeners and City of Bartlesville Parks Department, is in conjunction with the National Recreation and Park Association’s efforts to help restore the monarch butterfly population.