By Landry Evans
Bartlesville High School
The City of Bartlesville is once again teaming up with local garden clubs to help save the monarch butterfly, whose population has decreased by nearly 90 percent over the past two decades due to forest fragmentation, chemicals and global warming.
The partnership began nearly two years ago with the organizations working together to promote the planting of milkweed and other plants that are food for the monarch. The garden clubs have added monarch host and nectar plants to their annual plant sales and conducted educational forums on what all of us can do to help increase the monarch’s numbers.
“As a part of our support for Mayors for Monarchs we created a Facebook page, Bartlesville Mayors for Monarchs, where gardeners can share their experiences with flower gardens and butterflies — especially monarch caterpillars and butterflies,” said committee chair Kloma Laws. “We welcome your questions; if we don’t know the answer, we will find the answer for you.”
This year, the Council of Garden Clubs will continue their work with the City of Bartlesville in supporting the monarch by selling plants that feed the butterfly and planting those plants in home gardens and other places.
One place the plants can be found is the northwest corner of U.S. Highway 75 and Frank Phillips Boulevard — a popular garden space that is maintained by garden club members.
“In 1976, the ‘Bartlesville is a Garden Club City’ sign was constructed by the Bartlesville Parks Department with funds donated by the city garden clubs,” Brenda Hansen, president, Green Thumb Garden Club. “At that time the clubs began maintaining a small bed in front of the sign. Over the years the planting beds were expanded to include all the wonderful plantings you see today. It takes many volunteer hours to do the weeding, planting, mulching and trimming to maintain the garden beds.”
The Council of Garden Clubs is planning to request the site be designated as a monarch waystation, an area of land that provides necessary resources for monarchs to maintain their migration.
An open house and dedication is planned for the site in September 2019, when the monarchs will pass through Bartlesville on their way back to Mexico for the season.
“Once ‘the corner’ garden at Highway 75 and Frank Phillips is designated as a Waystation by Monarch Watch, we want to share it with others in Bartlesville,” Laws said. “Our first step in this is to have a dedication and open house at ‘the corner’ in September. We are planning for this to be a hands-on educational experience for those who attend. We will publish additional information as our plans are finalized.”
For more information about the program or to volunteer to help maintain the Frank Phillips Boulevard-U.S. 75 corner, contact gtgardeners@gmail.com.
Lean how you can help: 10 Things You Can Do To Help Save the Monarch
For more information, see NWF.org/MayorsMonarchPledge and get more updates from the National Wild life Federation at NWF.org/News.