Two new habitats for butterflies are now in Patrick County. Butterflies can visit the newly planted Monarch Waystation and butterfly habitat on the Mayo River Trail, where more than 100 pollinator plants were recently planted. They can also visit the Patrick County Library where young summer readers planted a habitat by the library sign.
In addition to many flowering pollinator friendly plants, three varieties of milkweed were planted that are native to Virginia, common milkweed, swamp milkweed and butterfly weed.
Monarch butterflies lay their eggs on milkweed and rely on it as a host plant for their caterpillars during their yearly migration to and from Mexico. For more information on what you can do to help the endangered monarchs, visit Monarch Watch at https://www.monarchwatch.org.
The projects are a collaboration of Dan River Basin Association, Southwestern Piedmont Master Naturalists and the Patrick County Library.
