Park initiative creating habitat for monarch butterflies

LOGAN, W.Va. (AP) - A West Virginia State Parks initiative is creating habitat for monarch butterflies.

Chief Logan State Park naturalist Lauren Cole told the Charleston Gazette-Mail that she has spent the last two years trying to make the park a more attractive place for butterflies, honeybees and other desirable insects.

The Pollinator Habitat Expansion Initiative involves mowing less and planting varieties of milkweed, clover, ironweed, wingstem, columbine, joe pye weed and two-leaved toothwort.

So far, Cole has created a little over two acres of pollinator habitat.

Cole says the first spring after planting, there were monarchs and caterpillars using the milkweed and this year there are “plenty of monarchs.”

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Information from: The Charleston Gazette-Mail, http://wvgazettemail.com.