The Spirit of Butterflies: Myth, Magic, and Art
| a beautiful and inspiring book on the significance of the butterfly in mythology, religion, superstition, literature, and the arts written by Maraleen Manos-Jones published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc. |
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June 7, 2024: I haven’t been able to access my website for a year and a half for various technological difficulties beyond my capabilities of solving. Thanks to computer whizes Philip Levine and Paloma Kop, here I am. I will endeavor to slowly catch up. Tis the season to be tending my gardens, weather permitting. Rain not only nourishes life, but frees moments for me to work inside instead of six or more hours/day immersed in tasks, my hands in healthy compost rich soil. Every week the garden unfolds and unfurls and opens, 
enchanting and engaging the senses. How fortunate I am to nurture and be nurtured by this land, these gardens.
In the May 2023 and May 2024 issues of the magazine, Catskill Mountain Region Guide, are two articles I wrote: The Pleasure and Importance of Planting for Pollinators in 2023 and Where Have All the Monarchs Gone and What We Can Do About It. I hope you have a chance to read them, see sidebar.
On the evening of October 18th, 2022 I was the recipient of the Pollinator Advocate Award USA from Pollinator Partnership’s North American Pollinator Protection Campaign. https://www.pollinator.org/nappc/awards The ceremony took place at the Botanical Gardens Atrium in Washington, D.C.
It was a wonderful way to celebrate the fiftieth year of my life guided by Butterfly Spirit. For my very short acceptance speech, I had a three minute limit, please see the Award page. Also, my three minute talk, Where Have All the Monarchs Gone, focused on how climate change has profoundly affected butterflies, also on the Awards page.
July 2, 2022: Honored as Pollinator Hero by Catskill Mountainkeeper: Being appreciated for my advocacy guided and inspired by butterflies for fifty years this summer is nourishment, nectar for my heart and soul.
I am featured in Mountainkeeper’s award-winning short film, Save the Pollinators, which calls attention to the dramatic decline of pollinator populations in NY State and beyond. You can watch this short film by visiting https://www.catskillmountainkeeper.org/protecting_pollinators and learn more about Maraleen’s work, including the amazing story of how she originally became involved in advocating for the protection of pollinators and healthy ecosystems they need to survive and thrive.”
Summer Solstice June 21, 2022: Lush Life Only in its second season of existence, the garden is exuberant to say the least. Please visit Pollinator Garden at Kenco page for more incredible photos and comments: Here are a couple of photos:
The Autumn Equinox Garden Nourishes People and Pollinators
In our troubled world beset by fires, floods, drought, and pandemic amidst greed, stupidity, and nastiness, I turn to the garden for calm nourishment and amazement. 
The garden is alive, attracting all kinds of pollinators, bees, butterflies, and birds among other insects, who have found a safe haven in a toxic world. Stop on by if you can, or view photos on page: Pollinator Garden at Kenco……… pause for a few refreshing relaxing moments……..nature nourishes….we all need nourishing these days …..Time flies….the project began in mid-March 2021….
Summer 2021: After months of work, the Pollinator Garden in front of Kenco Outfitters, 1000 Hurley Mtn. Road,/Rte 28, Kingston, N.Y is spreading her wings, filled with flowers, bees and butterflies.
The grand opening celebration and blessing of the pollinator garden took place on July 31 starting at 4:30 p.m. For the story of how this garden came to be and photos of its development from the seed of a dream to reality, please view side page Pollinator Garden at Kenco. 
Virtually Visit the Monarchs in Mexico Please read Tours to Mexico page for more information on how to experience the majesty of the monarchs while helping to protect them.
Save the Pollinators is a short award-winning documentary by Kate Hagerman and Angel Gates produced by Catskill Mountainkeeper in which I am featured. The film is sounding the alarm: our pollinators are in peril. We all have a part to play in saving them: While on the website sign the petition to big box stores to stop selling plants treated with neonicotinoids: https://www.catskillmountainkeeper.org/protecting_pollinators
For a complete in depth comprehensive scientific study that members of the Xerces Society have assembled from 60 scientific studies, please visit: https://www.xerces.org/sites/default/files/2018-05/16-022_01_XercesSoc_How-Neonicotinoids-Can-Kill-Bees_web.pdf.
A project that I have been advocating for over a decade has come to fruition. The initiative Welcoming Pollinators along the 52 miles of Rte. 28 Catskill Scenic Byway, from Olive to Andes, began in early 2020. Signs and seeds have been distributed to the eight towns along Scenic Rte 28 Byway.
Two public pollinator friendly public gardens are being created by a group of folks in Margaretville. The Ashokan Center, a 360 acre nature preserve in the middle of the town of Olive, is now planting for pollinators, enhancing its natural and wild beauty.
Many businesses and individuals already have established pollinator gardens along the Byway and surrounding area. Ulster County voted to protect pollinators, as did the towns of Olive, Shandaken, and Marbletown.
If you are interested in participating in protecting pollinators along Rte 28 Scenic Byway, contact your town officials to see how you might help. Create your own garden, wherever you are, a welcoming place to nourish and sustain pollinators, nourishing yourself in the process.
Victory Gardens for Ourselves and Victory Gardens for Pollinators: Gardening is America’s No. 1 hobby. Forty-eight percent of all garden plants are bought in big box stores. Even though these stores promised to phase out selling plants treated with long lasting and lethal neonicotinoid pesticides by 2020 that is not the case. Colony Collapse Syndrome of bees coincides with the immense and widespread use of this pesticide since its introduction by Bayer in 1995. Why is this important? Without our pollinators, we would lose at least one third of our food.
Victory Gardens for Ourselves and Our Pollinators
We need to sustain our health, equilibrium, and inner light in the midst of a pandemic, a divisive and chaotic political climate, and the approach of colder, shorter, and darker days. We need to dispel and counteract the gloom in these most uncertain times.
Even if you are in an apartment and have only one sunny window, you can have a window box to grow parsley, basil, cilantro, dill, or lettuces have some fresh green to nibble. Please see Maraleen’s Musings and Northeast Garden Plants
LA PANADERIA MONARCA, THE MONARCH BREAD BAKERY OPENED IN THE PUEBLO OF MACHEROS, MEXICO, IN THE SHADOW OF THE BUTTERFLIES: Each dream begins with a single step: Please read more about this by visiting the page : How Bread Bakery Could Help Save Monarchs in Mexico.
On the evening of September 17, 2019, I received a Pride of Ulster County Award from the Ulster County Legislature presented to me by Tracey Bartels and Kathy Nolan. A resolution for Ulster County to become a Pollinator Protecting entity passed unanimously immediately following the ceremony.
The Pride of Ulster County award reads: “Maraleen Manos-Jones” ‘Saving the Planet One Garden at a Time’.
In recognition of your decades of local, regional, and international work making our planet pollinator friendly through planting pollinating and nectar producing plants, educating and inspiring the public, and urging elimination of toxic herbicides and pesticides to protect Monarch Butterfly population and all other pollinators.” Please go to Ulster County Award page for my acceptance speech
Butterfly/Pollinator Garden Tours The summer of 2020 was the first time since I began my garden tours that they didn’t take place due to the pandemic. Even though there are no gardens tours, and summer turns to glorious autumn, you can take a virtual stroll through my gardens by viewing videos of Parts I & II of the tour below. Please click on Maraleen’s Musings page for stories, photos, and recipes from the gardens.
There have been more butterflies, bees, and other pollinators in Ulster County in 2019 and 2020 and now din 2021 than in many years because of the efforts of individuals and groups creating butterfly/pollinator gardens, and less spraying of our roads. Please visit Maraleen’s Musing’s page for photos and stories.
Thank you for doing your part in making our planet pollinator friendly.
Spring 2019: Neighbor to Neighbor Creating Green Corridors safe for butterflies, pollinators and all living creatures, including us. We all have a part to play in protecting our pollinators, without whom we would lose over one third of our food. It is not that difficult. Please click on Neighbor page for more information.
NPR Radio Interview: Where Have All the Monarchs Gone and What We Can Do About It. I was interviewed by Joe Donahue in June 2018. Joe is a wonderful interviewer; I dubbed him an honorary Butterfly Warrior at the end of the interview. In case you missed it, here is the link: http://wamc.org/post/spencertown_academys_hidden_gardens_lecture
The Environmental Conservation Commission of Marbletown was inspired to create Butterfly/Pollinator Gardens by their Town Hall; the lovely opening ceremony was held on August 26, 2017. I am honored that the gardens are dedicated to me. See Marbletown Garden page for more information.
Maraleen released 60 Late Monarch Butterflies at the San Antonio Botanical Gardens on Halloween, October 31st 2016: for details and photos, check out the page Late Monarch Release and view the video of my first mission releasing a late monarch in San Antonio below.
During the winter months you can witness millions of monarchs in Mexico. For more information please click on The Butterfly Tour page
PROGRESS IS BEING MADE, INCH BY INCH, GARDEN BY GARDEN AND COMMUNITY BY COMMUNITY:
Since 2016 NONE OF THE ROADS AROUND ANY OF THE RESERVOIRS IN THE N.Y.C. WATERSHED HAVE BEEN SPRAYED. WHAT STARTED IN OLIVE HAS RIPPLED OUT TO A MAJORITY OF THE 99 MILES OF ROADS THAT THE NYCDEP CONTROLS. Please click on page: Activism Stops Herbicide Spraying in Catskill Watershed.
VIDEOS:
Maraleen’s Journey with a Monarch Butterfly on Southwest Airlines.
Click here for more info.
Maraleen’s “Protect our Pollinators” on Saugerties Lighthouse TV23
Pollinator Friendly Towns Initiative: On January 14th, 2014, Maraleen gave an 11 minute presentation to the Town Board. Click here for more info.
Maraleen Manos-Jones offers tours of her Butterfly Gardens in Shokan, New York every summer. Here are two videos from her 2013 summer tour. Click here for more info.
Flight of the Monarch
I am extraordinarily pleased that this fairy tale journey of me and my butterfly traveling from Albany, N.Y. to San Antonio, Texas on November 5th, 2012 on Southwest Airlines to the San Antonio Botanical Gardens was widely reported on t.v. and in the press, including NPR, Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, and at least 30 pages of Google listings. There are also great photos in the San Antonio Express and The Times Union newspapers. Please check them out by clicking here:
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/A-warm-Texas-welcome-for-Albany-butterfly-4010957.php#photo-3699847
Pollinator Friendly Towns Initiative
Please click on the Pollinator Friendly Towns page on the right for more information and/or visit www.pollinatorfriendlytowns.org. If you have not yet added your name, just email me: mmjbutterfly@hvc.rr.com I have still to enter each name individually. If your town is not yet listed, please contact me to add your town, wherever it is. The bees, the butterflies and all pollinators thank you. mmjbutterfly@hvc.rr.com
This is the pledge we are asking people to sign since a world without bees is a world without food, and a world without butterflies is a world without hope:
We the people of the town of {…Your Town…}pledge to protect our pollinators as follows:
♦ We pledge not to use herbicides, pesticides, or fungicides
♦ We pledge to plant milkweed, and/or not cut milkweed, (unless necessary for farmers and livestock) since it is the only plant on which monarch butterflies can lay their eggs and a plant that supports many other species.
♦ We pledge to plant some native flowers, shrubs and/or trees.
♦ We pledge not to plant GMO crops
There are many reasons for the decline of monarchs and bees, and songbirds, and the multitude of other fauna and flora that I will briefly outline here:
– widespread use of pesticides and toxins on the U.S.’s 33 million acres of lawns is literally killing all living creatures and seeping into our water systems. In the U.S. every year 80 million pounds of pesticides are used on lawns, which translates to more pesticides per acre than used by Big Ag, which is to say a lot. Lawns are helping to make 85% of all species extinct besides being a threat to human health since pesticides contain neuro- disruptors. Pesticides are now found in 93% of children aged 3 to 13 years old and 96% of all fish have pesticide residue.
– GMO crops call for the widespread use of pesticides
– loss of habitats: over 2 millions acres of wildlife habitat is lost in the U.S. every year. What does this mean? New housing developments cut down trees, create lawns and use non-native plantings that do not support local species. Of course, the same is true for malls and roadways. Conscientious development can work with nature rather than obliterate all life around it.
– We all need to address the issue of mowing of roadways just as the monarchs are laying their eggs on milkweed.
You can now take a tour of my butterfly gardens from the comfort and warmth of your own home or come in person during the summer. Enjoy. Thank you
Butterfly Garden Tours
Maraleen Manos-Jones offers tours of her Butterfly Gardens in Shokan, New York every summer. The tours are a two hour experience. Dates for the Summer of 2019 yet to be announced.
Maraleen is available as a Butterfly Garden Consultant. Please contact her at 845-657-8073 or mmjbutterfly@hvc.rr.com
Butterfly gardening not only adds immense beauty, serenity and joy to your life, it is vital in helping to save many species of butterflies, bees, birds and supports the great tapestry of life. Butterfly habitats are disappearing at an enormous rate, at least 2.3 million acres a year. In addition to habitat loss, the use of pesticides and herbicides kills caterpillars and butterflies.
After gardening for forty years, Maraleen graduated as a Master Gardener in February 2013, studying with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County.
Monarchs In Crisis: Maraleen participated on a panel at the Princeton Library sponsored by the Sierra Club on October 23, 2014. We all have a part to play in protecting our pollinators. Time is of the essence. We have lost 90% of the monarch population in North America over the last twenty years. Please read the informational pages and watch the videos on this website and on www.pollinatorfriendlytowns.org website. Thank you.
Where Have All the Monarchs Gone and What We Can Do About It, Sally Spillane interviewed Maraleen on The Gardening Show on WKZE, 98.1 on 11/03/13 and 03//3/19. We’ve been talking about this for a long time while our environment keeps being degraded, ever more viciously, as greed overtakes science as a basis for making decisions.