January 06, 2025
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Streator monarch garden volunteers gain recommendations from Park Board

4 locations pinned for future gardens

By Derek Barichello
Streator resident Nina Vaughn displays a Monarch Waystation sign to the Park Board on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023. The sign designates a conservation area for monarchs during their migratory patterns.

The four locations recommended by the Streator Park Board for volunteers to plant gardens to attract monarch butterflies will be eligible to register as Monarch Waystations. (Derek Barichello)

The Streator Monarch Mission has direction.

The Streator Park Board on Thursday recommended the Streator City Council allow Streator Monarch Mission volunteers to plant a pollinator garden at the west entrance of the Hopalong Cassidy Canoe Launch, flowers and native grasses between the levy and the Vermilion River, and a buckwheat field to the north of Marilla Park; to add perennial flowers to the planters by the incubator; and to plant a sunflower patch in the area west of the incubator.

More potential gardens still are in discussion.

The City Council will vote to grant final approval to the locations at its 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 19, meeting at City Hall, 204 S. Bloomington St.

Dozens of volunteers will grow and maintain each of these areas.

Streator resident Nina Vaughn first approached the Park Board in February with the idea. She said she wanted to create an environment with butterflies for future generations, including her granddaughter, who enjoys going with her to her garden and seeing them.

The monarch butterfly, Illinois’ state insect, last summer was listed as endangered on the International Union of Conservation of Nature’s Red List of threatened species.

Streator’s sites will be eligible to become Monarch Waystations. These are places that provide resources necessary for monarchs to produce successive generations and sustain their migration, according to the program’s website.

Without milkweeds throughout their spring and summer in North America, monarchs would not be able to produce the successive generations that culminate in the migration to Mexico each fall. Similarly, without nectar from flowers, these fall migratory monarch butterflies would be unable to make their migration. Anyone interested can go to https://www.monarchwatch.org/waystations/#register for more information on how to create a waystation.

Anyone interested in volunteering with the Streator Monarch Mission or getting more information about planting can go to the volunteers’ Facebook page.