The Balloons of Berteau

aka Hairy Balls – aka Family Jewels – aka Bishop’s Balls – aka Swan Plant

Balloons and more balloons. At the end of last summer, Eva Chase made a comment: “wouldn’t it be funny if a bunch of neighbors had balloon milkweed plants growing in front of their houses on our block of Berteau?”

What a great idea. So that’s what we did this summer.

A Bevy of Balloons on Berteau
5014 W. Berteau
5029 West Berteau
5035 W. Berteau Parkway
5048 W. Berteau
Semper Pi Leclaire NE
Volunteer
5026 W. Berteau
5035 W. Berteau
5038 W. Berteau
Semper Pi Leclaire NW
Semper Pi Lawler SE
The plants

Since last year was the first summer I grew these annual milkweeds, I was not entirely familiar with their behavior. Here is what I learned:

  • If you plan on being able to harvest seeds, you need to start plants early indoors – in March, or earlier.
  • At the end of the season, if the plants are left outdoors, they will survive a first or second frost.
  • Balls (seed pods) that are left on the plant will self sow and many volunteers will come up next spring.
  • Seeds that are direct sown in spring or germinate as volunteers, may develop balls by fall, but probably won’t mature to produce seeds. Our season is not long enough (see first bullet).
  • Unwanted volunteer plants are very easy to pull out.
  • Birds will use the silk inside of the mature balls as a soft and cozy nesting material.
  • Reminder: this is an annual plant. It is not native to our region.
  • The plants do prefer full sun but did OK in partial shade.
  • The plants seem to be pretty thirsty so, if grown in pots, daily watering is recommended.
Balloons A-Popping
save The Monarchs
  • The monarch butterflies will lay their eggs on this variety of milkweed, and the caterpillars will readily eat the plants.
  • When so many balloon milkweed volunteer plants germinated this spring, I was going to yank most of them out from my beds, but then I found lots of eggs and caterpillars on them, especially on the baby plants. So I left them in the beds, realizing that meant much more food for the butterflies.
  • If you don’t want to commit to growing native, perennial milkweed plants, consider growing these balloon milkweeds, as a source of food for monarch butterflies, even if your plants don’t develop the delightful hairy balls.

It’s fall now, so I go out every day and squeeze those hairy balls to see if they are soft and ready to pop. A pleasant activity.

If you want balloon milkweed seeds to grow next year, just let me know. I have plenty.

Summer of ’22

We sure had some strange weather in April and May, but BBGP got off to an early and good start. Here are some activity updates:

New Semper Pi – Leclaire NW

With the valued assistance of neighbors, the NW corner of Leclaire has been Semper Pi-ed. The grass was removed, soil dug and amended with the free MWRD compost, beds laid out, plants installed, seeds sown, paths mulched with the free Streets & San chipped wood, signage and plant markers installed. Phew! Done!

Despite the really crappy clay soil, the plants are doing amazingly well.

Semper Pi Leclaire NW. Handpainted butterfly by Cynthia Jahraus of 5112 W. Berteau
It’s only the beginning of June but flowers have begun to bloom!
BBGP – Beyond 5000 West

A new BBGP garden has been installed in the parkway of 5217 W. Berteau. Last year, a passerby stopped to talk about BBGP and wanted some advice so she should create a garden in her parkway. This year she stopped by to tell me that she executed it! So, I gave her a BBGP sign. After all, she does live on Berteau!

BBGP has spread west of Laramie!

5217 W. Berteau parkway garden
BBGP Kids Mini

Lilly organized a few of the neighborhood kids and installed a “Kids Mini” butterfly garden in the parkway. Kids Mini is planted with milkweeds to support the monarch caterpillars, and zinnias to support all pollinators.

Mega Nectar Gardens

After last year’s hiatus, The Roxy Owens Mega Nectar Garden has returned this year. It will undoubtedly be glorious again!

The Roxy Owens Mega Nectar Garden – 5038 W. Berteau

Lilly Narvaez completely reworked her front yard, with the help of Carlos, of course, removing all of the grass and turning it into a glorious pollinator and butterfly mega nectar garden. It was a huge effort and a true labor of love. Passers by are already stopping to enjoy it.

Lilly’s lovely front yard garden – 5029 W. Berteau
Blooming beautifully
Clover Lawn

Last summer I removed a section of lawn from my parkway and sowed mini clover seeds, to see what would happen after a winter. Well, I think it is marvelous. It’s a lovely green carpet that chokes out or at least camouflages the weeds. The fragrance of the flowers reminds me of the scent of a meadow from my childhood. The bees adore the flowers. The bunnies love the clover and seem to prefer it to my expensive ornamental plants. Not only is fertilizer not required, clover adds nutrients to the soil. And no mowing required, unless you feel like it.

Clover seed used to be included in the lawn seed mixes of the past. Why, oh why did it become an undesirable?

Here is where I ordered my seed: Outside Pride

Mini clover lawn replacement. No mowing required!
Status of Semper Pi’s
Milkweeds-a-poppin

And stay tuned for the invasion of the hairy balls………..

Shit for the Asking

When BBGP got started, I immediately started researching free resources to get the gardens started – seeds, mulch, compost, etc. I soon discovered that MWRD (Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago) provides free compost, called EQ Compost, made from biosolids: in other words, shit.

You may be aware that Milwaukee has their own version of biosolids compost called Milorganite, but it is not free. And it smells bad – like sewage.

The MWRD compost is indeed free and has no odor at all. They will deliver it for free – minimum 10 cu. yds. though. That’s a whole lotta shit. But, there are a number of sites around the city where you can shovel it yourself. The closest location to us is the O’Brien plant on Howard just west of McCormick. You just pull up next to the mound with your car and start shoveling into whatever containers you brought in your car. Provided you brought some good containers or strong bags, because this is some heavy shit. And I hope you brought a shovel. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve loaned my shovel to other people who only brought things to shovel with like a plastic dust pan or just a large kitchen spoon. I’m not kidding.

Free compost at the O’Brien plant on Howard.

I did have some questions about this MWRD compost, particularly around long term storage and pharmaceutical content, so I emailed them and I received responses from their Senior Environmental Soil Scientist, Theresa Johnston. During the course of our communications, Theresa became interested in BBGP and asked if MWRD could include an article about BBGP in their biosolids newsletter. Well, who wouldn’t want to be written up in a biosolids newsletter!!!!

Theresa drove up to Berteau at the end of September from the Stickney plant so she could see the BBGP gardens and interview me. The newsletter with the BBGP article has been released in the latest Fall/Winter edition. Click HERE for the link to the newsletter’s PDF.

Theresa Johnston, MWRD Senior Environmental Soil Scientist, September 30, 2021.

So, I did use quite a bit of this compost for the BBGP raised beds and Semper Pi. Being a shit shoveler is back-breaking but it is worth it. It is a great resource.

Recognition

Despite a chilly Saturday morning (October 23), there was a warm gathering of neighbors at Semper Pi Lawler SW to welcome 3 of our local elected officials (and staff) who came to recognize and honor the Berteau Butterfly Garden Project.

Bridget Degnen, our Cook County Commissioner, saw the Block Club Chicago article and, being in support of environmental initiatives, submitted a resolution to the Board of Commissioners to officially recognize the efforts of BBGP. She came on site to meet us and formally present the resolution. Lindsey LaPointe, our State Representative, and Robert Martwick, our State Senator, also attended and spoke at the event. Senator Martwick also presented BBGP with a formal acknowledgement from the State of Illinois. After the formalities were over, the guests lingered and toured our block, even visiting Lilly’s yard to see her butterfly enclosures. Rob asked lots of general gardening questions and was particularly interested in the balloon milkweeds. I had seed packets ready, which I passed out to all of the guests.

A very pleasant morning, indeed!

To be honest, I was not familiar with Bridget or with what she does, so this was a good opportunity to become familiar with her priorities, which align with our BBGP goals. As it turns out, her previous profession was as an environmental engineer. And, she loves The Lorax !! I think she’s the kind of person that you can just visit in her office (just around the corner on Milwaukee) and have a good conversation.

Thanks to our local videographers (Jenny Snyder and Larry Chase), we have a recording of her presentation.

Below are additional photos (thank you Chris Swider) from the event. Click on an image to view full size.

Monarch Learning Center

Children actively participated of Berteau Monarch Initiative
By Lilliam Narvaez

Numbers of monarchs have decreased over the last 20 years.  Pesticides and climate change are destroying the milkweed monarchs need to survive. As responsible citizens, we can get involved by planting milkweed and nectar plants that are native to our area.  Together, we can save the monarch.

I’m sure you saw lots of children running up and down Berteau Ave. during our block party.  So were the monarch butterflies. The iconic orange and black markings inspired the children to visit the Monarch Learning Center, a booth prepared with the collaboration of our neighbors, with the objective to educate children with information on how to provide habitats for monarch butterflies and other pollinators.

 Children filled out a “Pledge” promising to plant milkweed seeds to help butterflies.  At the same time, they received an envelope containing milkweed seeds for them to plant.  In addition to that, children had the opportunity to read butterfly books, fold origami butterflies, color paper butterflies, get butterfly stickers and candies, get a butterfly painted on their face, learn about the lifecycle of a butterfly, watch a National Geographic monarch documentary, and the most remarkable event: the release of two butterflies, which gave them a hands-on experience they will always remember.

 We hope that working together, we can improve, restore and create habitats that will invite these magnificent and endangered insects, while educating children that will inspire future scientists.

Photo Gallery: Monarch Learning Center, August 7, 2021
(click on thumbnail to view full size or download)

Sharing Knowledge with the Community

The Berteau Butterfly Garden Project was honored to host an on site visit by St. John’s Girl Scout Troop 20010 on Friday, August 6. In attendance were seven troop members, aged 5 to 13, along with several mothers. The troop is engaged in a current project to develop a butterfly garden at St. John’s Lutheran Church & School on Montrose. As part of their project research and planning, the troop took the opportunity to leverage our butterfly garden knowledge and results.

The charming girls asked very salient questions, made plant sketches, took pictures and notes, and showed enthusiasm for their initiative. All in all, a very productive visit.

BBGP is delighted to be able to serve as a resource for similar efforts by our community!

Please view pictures from the event, below:

St. John’s Girl Scout Troop 20010, Semper Pi Lawler SW

Life of Semper Pi

It’s good to be ambitious but you also have to be realistic. The original goal was to have all 6 quarter round parkways developed as part of the Semper Pi project this summer. Don’t think that will happen. For a relatively small space, it’s surprising what the resource requirements are in terms of time, labor, and costs. And it takes quite a lot of plants! Our most recent SP, SP Lawler SW, contains 50 plants. Some of the plants were started from seed indoors in early spring, some were transplanted from existing neighbor gardens, some were purchased, and some were direct sown from seed.

Acquiring sufficient plants is really the biggest challenge for Semper Pi. One “from scratch” SP install per year is probably the most reasonable. Live and learn!

In any case, based on the various previous states of the quarter rounds, we now have 4 out of 6 Semper Pi’ed. Here is a summary of these 4:

SP Lawler SE

  • Previously fully developed but few plants were pollinator friendly
  • Existing single common milkweed stalk in 2020 spread to 4 stalks in 2021
  • Added additional hosts plants – common milkweed and rue
  • Added nectar plants
  • Added native plants

SP Lawler SW

  • Previously undeveloped
  • Prepped site for planting: grass removed, soil rototilled, dug, and turned, compost added
  • Site layout created
  • Pollinator friendly plants installed with a focus on natives
  • Turned misfortune into opportunity by using fallen tree limbs as landscape edging
  • Educational resources and art projects accommodated

SP Leclaire NE

  • Previously developed, plants died out with time, one volunteer milkweed plant
  • Added various host plants
  • Added various nectar plants
  • Added native plants

SP Leclaire SW

  • Undeveloped site fully realized as a pollinator friendly, native plant environment by the Sladeks in early 2020
  • Plants continue to fill in, multiply, and successfully attract pollinators

If you build it they will come. Let’s hope so. The drought seems to have affected the butterfly populations this summer. At least we can support the ones that do flutter through our neighborhood.

Semper Pi Gallery

Fun With Project Names

Just like we came up with the name, “Milkweed Alley”, for the alley milkweed seed sowing BBGP sub-project (more about that later), we needed to come up with a better name for the parkway quarter-round development project – which is a bit of a mouthful.

At the end of last summer, Roxy, Larry, and I were enjoying a warm evening and a glass of wine (or 2) on Roxy’s porch. I had finished measuring and making scale drawings of each of the quarter-rounds and mentioned that Sister Celine, who taught math at Nativity BVM elementary school, used mnemonic devices to help us remember some equations related to circles:

Circumference of a circle: Cut dee pie: C = dπ
Area of a circle: A square raspberry pie: A = r2π (radius squared)

We noted the reference to Pi and that the quarter-rounds were big pie shapes.

More wine and relaxation. Conversation turned to the naming of the quarter-round project. Silence, musings, more wine, and Larry, out of nowhere says, “Semper Pi”. At that moment, this was extremely amusing and we laughed and laughed and laughed (I guess, you had to be there).

So, I figure, why not?
Semper – always
Pi – a mathematical constant of an irrational number that never ends
We will refer to this BBGP sub-project as Semper Pi.

Semper Pi it is!


Reawakening

It’s still March, and I should know better. These lovely sunny warm days in early, early spring…. I think you know what I’m talking about! I have to remind myself that it’s still March in Chicago.

But for this summer, because of BBGP, the planning started early. One of the objectives was to find ways to grow our own butterfly friendly plants from seed, instead of buying plants, so efforts needed to start last fall:

Lilly dug up a section of her parkway and planted milkweed seeds in her “milkweed nursery”. The seedlings are already peeking out from the soil! She should have a bounty of milkweed plants.

I made a raised bed in my parkway to sow seeds that prefer sowing in the fall. I sowed a variety of natives that I have never attempted to grow from seed before. The Princess Victoria Louise Poppy seeds (ok, not a native) that I collected from my yard actually germinated in November! Damn, that was not supposed to happen. I guess those will be a fail. I also don’t hold high hopes for the natives whose seeds were fine as dust and require light for germination. But, one never knows, and it never hurts to try.

And then there is the winter sowing experiment. Never tried this before. We’ll see. Kind of fun to look at the picture now. For those of you who provided me with the gallon milk jugs, here they are in action.

I’ve got another batch of seeds going through their cold stratification in my refrigerator right now. Those will get sown indoors by the end of this month.

Lilly got some milkweed seeds going already indoors. Milkweeds really love this woman. They will grow for her no matter what.

Based on how these seed starting efforts go, we’ll try to share plants with the neighbors.

In the meantime, I have reached out to Nick Urhausen at Urhausen Greenhouses and provided him with a plant list. I’m hoping that he grows some that are on that list. I’ll let you know when I hear back from him.

So, hoping that when you plan your gardens this year, you’ll think about choosing some of the plants that you can find on the pages on this web site. And maybe you will create some new flower beds somewhere! Every little bit helps.

Let’s make more urban pollinator habitats!

Milkweed Alley: Seed Sowing Phase 1

We had intended to get the milkweed seeds sown in both alleys in one day – today. As luck would have it, it’s raining. But being troopers, Lilly, Heidi, and I set out at 9:30 am and were able to get the south alley done.

It was interesting to discover how many of the areas that looked like good planting patches, turned out to be just a thin layer of dirt over concrete, and therefore, not viable for seed sowing. By scraping, poking, and clearing weeds, we did our best to find actual earth.

Some of the spots we cleared were tiny patches:

And some were rather luxurious swaths of soil:

Each location was marked with a flag, though I don’t think these flags will survive the winter, based on how they looked on this rainy day.






Look out, women with garden tools….

What’s so special about the monarchs?

I know, and you probably know, all pollinators are at risk: honeybees, bumble bees, all kinds of butterflies, even hummingbirds, due to loss of habitat, climate change, pesticides, and herbicides. So why such an emphasis on the monarch?

Unlike most butterflies, that have mechanisms for overwintering, the monarch butterflies cannot overwinter in cold climates. Therefore, they are one of the few species of butterfly that migrate to warmer climates for the winter. This happens all over the world. In North America, west of the Rockies, monarchs migrate to and overwinter in various locations in California. In North America east of the Rockies, however, all monarchs, originating as far north as Canada, migrate to one place only: a mountain forest in Michoacan, Mexico. This migration is considered an extraordinary and amazing natural phenomenon. Scientists still don’t really understand how the monarchs know that they need to migrate, let alone know when to leave and where to go. And how can such a fragile creature fly as far as three thousand miles?

So, if we lose the monarchs, we lose a natural phenomenon that is unique to eastern North America, as well.

Below is a beautiful documentary that I found on YouTube. It’s long but worth watching. I admit, it made me cry a couple of times.

By the way, our neighbors, Carlos and Lilly, have been to Michoacan to see the monarchs. It sounds like it was a magical experience. I need to see this natural phenomenon before it’s gone.

I am not sure that you noted the irony of the graphic above (created by Monsanto), considering that Monsanto is one of the major sources of loss of habitat for pollinators. Nice graphic, but do you think they are going to stop the habitat destruction?

Milkweed Alley: Seeds and More Seeds

Clearly, a prerequisite of Milkweed Alley is having milkweed seeds to sow in the alleys. But we certainly don’t want to BUY seeds. So Lilly and I have been scoping out the milkweed pods in our neighborhood, particularly the ones in Peg’s (and her kilted husband’s) front yard on Leclaire. But every time we check, the pods are still green and not ready to harvest. We were getting a little worried about timing.

And then Lilly has a great idea and calls Urhausen Greenhouses. They agree to let her come by and get some pods. When she shows up, they have already cut a bunch of fully ripe pods (actually, kind of over ripe) from their own garden.

What a great score! Lots and lots of seeds, more than we need.

Urhausen Greenhouses milkweed pod donation

So, cleaning the seeds from very ripe pods that have already split open is quite challenging. The lighter than air fluff (aka floss, aka coma, aka silk) that the seeds are attached to immediately expands and is quite hard to control. Come by my house and you will see the result.

In the meantime, I had been corresponding via email with a gal at the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District regarding their free compost, only to find out that she lives at Dakin and Lamon and she loved the idea of BBGP. Hence, I received an envelope in the mail from her with free milkweed seeds. Another seed score!

Free milkweed seeds from MWRD of Greater Chicago

So, as far as seeds, we have more than enough for this year’s Milkweed Alley. Heidi will be joining Lilly and me. The actual date is TBD, pending weather and other scheduling considerations.

SIDEBAR: Roxy Owens and I have been devoted Urhausen Greenhouses customers for years. If you have never been there, you really should check it out (though it’s kind of late for this year). It’s an old family owned business tucked away in a residential neighborhood in Lincolnwood near Crawford and Touhy. They grow their own plants, the quality is great and so are the prices. And they started accepting credit cards a couple of years ago: BONUS!

Support our independent local businesses!

Milkweed Alley

It dawned on me that the Berteau Butterfly Garden Project will be comprised of sub-projects, and that maybe it would be easier to reference the sub-projects with a name or designation. Since no one objected to our idea to scatter milkweed seeds this fall on weedy patches in the two alleys behind Berteau 5000 block residences, we are moving forward with this initiative. Therefore, it needs a name.

Milkweed Alley – how does that sound?

As with many projects, Milkweed Alley is already experiencing scope creep. The thought now is to turn this into a small study as to the effectiveness of our seed sowing effort. Therefore, when we scatter some seeds on a particular patch, we are going to insert a numbered flag marker in that spot (and also document in a file the location and flag number). In the spring, we can assess the outcome of our effort by checking each site and noting if we see any milkweed plants sprouting. Outcomes will be reported on this site.

We chose orange flags because monarchs are orange

Milkweed Alley has been added to the new Events Calendar, which can be viewed in the sidebar of this page.

If anyone would like to join Lilly and me, either with seed collecting or seed sowing (which will require pulling weeds), please let us know. If you have any other suggestions or ideas, they are always welcome.