Everyone loves seeing butterflies flit about in the garden, especially the orange and black monarchs that are now making their way through our area on their journey northward.

The pink flowers of swamp milkweed attract monarch butterflies who lay their eggs underneath its leaves.

Monarchs lay their eggs only on milkweed, and the foliage of the plant is the only food the emerging caterpillars will eat. So it just makes sense that the more milkweed is growing in our gardens and natural spaces, the more monarchs we will see.

Last Sunday, a group of butterfly lovers, conservationists and other volunteers installed 15 flats of native swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) in two wetland areas protected by the Wolf River Conservancy.

Celeste Bursi, president of the Tennessee chapter of Butterfly Rescue International, spearheaded the project after receiving a small grant from the Association for Butterflies to buy seeds and plants.

“The goal is for these seedlings to grow to maturity in a couple of years and then disperse their seeds all over the Wolf River area,” said Bursi, who also grows and sells butterflies through her company, Butterflies in Memphis.

Getting people to help with the project proved to be an easy sell for Bursi.

Jill Maybry, horticulturist at the Memphis Zoo, germinated the seeds and grew plants in the zoo’s greenhouse. The Wolf River Conservancy provided the land for the beds. Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse on Germantown Road provided mulch.

Volunteers from Comcast, Clean Memphis, Kohl’s Department Stores, Girl Scouts, 4-H groups, Immaculate Conception High School, Southwest Tennessee Community College and the City of Memphis Office of Youth Services worked in the rain-soaked beds.

Nine members of Delta 7 AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corp., who are in Memphis to work with the Wolf River Conservancy, helped as well.

After spending the winter in Mexico, monarchs lay their eggs as they migrate northward, passing through our region in March and April.

The adult offspring of those eggs are thought to continue the migration northward.

“It’s been my experience that some of them will stay if there is enough milkweed and warm weather,” Bursi said. Monarchs return to Mexico in August.

Swamp milkweed, which has attractive pink flowers, is a close relative of the orange-flowering milkweed commonly called butterfly weed.

Monarchs will lay their eggs on any type of milkweed, but they especially like the tropical variety, which is grown here as an annual.

You don’t have to have a swamp to grow the pink-flowering milkweed. It grows in sunny to partly shaded places. And unlike the orange-blooming variety, swamp milkweed likes wet soil, making it easier to grow in our clay soil.

Its fragrant pink-to-mauve flowers bloom in mid- to late summer, about the same time as Joe Pye Weed and swamp sunflowers.

The flowers are followed by green pods filled with seeds. When the seeds mature, the pod splits open so wind carries the silky-haired seeds to new places.