The Alverno Commits to Sustainability (ACTS) committee has been working toward a Monarch Waystation designation, and in late May two areas of the Milwaukee campus were recognized — the rain garden by the Early Learning Center and the bioswale, located in the parking lot on 39th and Morgan.
Monarch Waystations are places that provide resources necessary for monarchs to produce successive generations and sustain their migration. Alverno’s garden includes Culver’s root, ironweed, coneflower, wild quinine and butterfly milkweed, all of which could be easily incorporated into home gardens. “Over 85% of the world’s flowering plants depend on pollinators, including plants that we and other animals use for food,” says Kathleen Minik, co-chair of the ACTS committee. “Native plants and insects have coevolved with each other. Native insects have, for ages, depended on native plants for food, and the native flowers rely on the native insects to pollinate them.”
Alverno’s rain garden was developed in 2006 with support from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the Environmental Protection Agency. Professor Jennifer Johanson and her students designed the garden to reduce storm water runoff. The bioswale, built in 2014 with help from the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, is designed to retain nearly 250,000 gallons of rainwater annually. It acts like a filter, eliminating contaminants like oil and metal, leaving the water cleaner.
While both gardens had a mix of nectar plants, they lacked milkweed – a key component of a Monarch Waystation. While adult monarchs will feed on diverse plants, the caterpillars rely on milkweed as their only source of food. Now the campus supports monarchs in all stages of their life cycle, and the bioswale does double duty by filtering rainwater and supporting an essential pollinator.
Did You Know?
Back in 2005, students in Professor Jennifer Johanson’s environmental geology class designed the campus rain garden as a class project. These students went on to form Team Green, a student organization that is dedicated to a clean environment on and off campus and is still planting the seeds of environmental stewardship today.
