I have let Mulberry trees grow wild in three areas on the farm. Yesterday evening – on my way to the vegetable garden suddenly a cloud of startled monarch butterflies flew out of the trees. At that moment I knew why I loved those trees. 
I dropped my vegetables and grabbed for the phone but by then most of the bright and beautiful butterflies had wooshed on their fairy wings back into the stand of trees.
I counted at least twenty separate butterflies hanging in the branches of the mulberries like turning leaves. Autumnal coloured wings turning, opening and closing like nebulous heart beats made from sunset skies. It was magical.
This is the first time I have ever seen so many in the garden or so many close together. I was enchanted. 
It was like a divine pat on the back. Look the cosmos was saying – all your milkweeds have done the trick. The new butterflies are gathering together to join the migration. You and your wilderness gardens have made a difference. 
And in the mulberry trees no less.
Here is how to grow a mulberry tree. Put pots of soil under a big old mulberry tree. By late summer mulberry trees will be growing in your pots.
I wonder if rain at the wrong time affects the butterflies takeoff. I will let you know when they leave.
They might have gone already.
Boiled Eggs and Pig Cakes waiting for first farm breakfast.
I hope you have a lovely day.
Celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
44 responses to “MONARCHS LOVE MULBERRY”
I have mulberry trees growing everywhere…they tend to multiply like weeds…now I must go out and see if I have Monarchs. We also have lots of MIlkweed I let it grow wild all over the farm ditch banks and pastures!
In my travels to other post offices I have heard several people talking about the butterflies and how this is the most they have seen in our area in years. They sure are a wonder!
Mulberry trees! My folks had one in their yard in Kansas. Mom kept hearing ‘plop! plop! plop-plop!” She looked out the window – birds all over the ground – DEAD DRUNK and falling from the tree from eating fermented mulberries! Thy eventually staggered around, then flew away.
A little town near us named Mariposa (Spanish for butterfly) celebrates the migration of the monarchs each year. Moro Bay south of here at the coast also celebrates the migration of the monarchs. The tree trunks and leaves blossom with their golden-ochre-persimmon beauty! So beautiful, so harmless – a true gift from nature!
Phantastic photos, Miss C!.
Monarch Grove is a neighborhood in Los Osos, which is adjacent to Morro Bay. My old colleague lives there! We went to school in San Luis Obispo. The butterflies get everywhere!
Giant tortoises love mulberry, too! Do you know if they are white or red mulberry? We have tons of white here, which are invasive and love full sun. Around my house, I have more of the native red ones. I pick leaves all summer for the tortoises.
Ours are red. The white mulberry is actually an introduced tree. Cows and pigs eat them too – which is fine they grow so fast.
I was just about to ask if they are the native red mulberries. They are not native here. Black mulberries grew on the perimeters of the apricot orchards to keep bird busy while the apricots ripened. Cultivars of mulberries were selected to ripen at the same time or just prior to the cultivar of apricot within the orchard. They were used for the pruned too.
My milkweed did so poorly this year. No idea why. I saw ONE monarch all summer. Plenty of mosquitoes though. Today my husband got bit 3 places, me too.
Sugar ! Best piece of gardening advice I have read for many a year – put pots of soil under old mulberry tree > harvest a crop of free plants at the end of the season !!! Now to find an old mulberry tree 🙂 !
I love butterflies and would grow mulberry trees just for them if I could. No space for them here. Planted butterfly bushes but all I got was bees and yellow jackets. ;( Great photos of them.
How magical! You are doing a good thing, giving these special butterflies a place to land, feed and multiply. And you describe them so poetically, just beautiful.
Isn’t it exciting? The Monarchs come to our mulberries as well and rest upon the branches. Sometimes, I don’t know they are there until they flit off a leaf. Their numbers have definitely increased this year. I feel hopeful.
This makes me soooo happy to see the Monarchs at the Farmy. Last year Monarchs abounded amd lingered around our backyard and adjacent patch of wilderness, this year there were just a few for a short while. We noted their lack, perhaps because of the dry winter. I always look at Monarchs as an environmental barometer… which means for us, here, something is out of kilter, sadly. Hopefully the Monarchs will return to us next year.
Oh, how very special a moment that was.