Rain Gardens Host Royal Guests
Our green infrastructure gardeners have discovered monarch caterpillars and butterflies again this year in rain gardens in Queens and Brooklyn. This generation of monarchs is known as a “super generation,” since they live eight times longer than their parents and grandparents and travel 10 times farther in their lifetime.
Since the mid-1990’s, monarch butterfly populations have dropped significantly due to many factors, including severe weather events and a changing climate, the use of pesticides, invasive species and a rapidly shrinking habitat. Milkweed, a favorite of the monarch butterfly, is one of the plants that is regularly used in our rain gardens to help soak up stormwater. With more than 4,000 rain gardens built over the last few years, monarch butterflies will have an expanding habitat throughout the five boroughs to both reproduce and feed during their annual migration.
