Are you signed up for our Online Class, Marvelous Monarchs? You won't want to miss this. Our Stanislaus County Master Gardener instructors will teach you all about butterflies in general, as well as about monarchs, their life cycle, their incredible migration, the importance of nectar plants and milkweed to their survival, and how you can help these endangered butterflies. Use the link below to register.

Date: Tuesday, December 20, 2022
Time: 9:00 am – 10:30 am.
Where: Online
Register: https://ucanr.edu/monarchs/2022/online
Link: you'll be sent a link to log in with before the class.

Registration will close Tuesday, Dec 20 at 8:00 a.m.

Can't tune in live? Watch the recording the following week on our YouTube Channel.

Our Marvelous Monarchs in-person class in October was a hit with attendees. Some of you wrote that you were disappointed to miss it, and others noted they were too far away to attend as they don't live in Stanislaus County. Our speakers agreed, so we are holding the class on Zoom! This time if you miss it, you can watch the following week on our YouTube Channel.

UCCE Stanislaus County Master Gardeners Rhonda Allen and Denise Godbout-Avant are looking forward to sharing their enthusiasm and knowledge about monarch butterflies with you!

You'll learn about butterflies in general, about monarchs, their life cycle, their incredible migration, the importance of nectar plants and milkweed to their survival, and how you can help these endangered butterflies. Use the link below to register.

Date: Tuesday, December 20, 2022
Time: 9:00 am – 10:30 am
Where: Online
Register:  https://ucanr.edu/monarchs/2022/online
Link: you'll be sent a link to log in with before the class.

Starting around mid-August through September, both the Western Monarch and Eastern Monarch butterfly populations (Danaus plexippus) begin their long journey south from southern Canada and northern USA to their overwintering sites in coastal California and Mexico. These magnificent, colorful creatures are the world's most recognized and beloved butterflies.  Yet, they are increasingly in danger of becoming extinct.

Life Cycle

Like all butterflies, Monarch butterflies have four life stages: 

• Egg: The female Monarch lays her eggs on their sole host plant, the milkweed (Asclepias). She generally lays one egg per plant.  Each egg is about the size of a grain of salt. 
• Larva (Caterpillar):  After 3 – 5 days, the Monarch egg hatches to a larva, also called a caterpillar, eating only milkweed leaves. They go through five instar stages over a period of 10 – 14 days as they grow from 1/16^th of an inch to about two inches, molting their exoskeleton at each stage.
• Pupa: The caterpillar finds a protected place to develop its chrysalis for the pupal stage. During the next 11-15 days the pupa will change to an adult by liquifying its body while inside the chrysalis, ultimately emerging to the adult butterfly.
• Adult: In the final hours before emergence, the chrysalis becomes translucent, a crack will appear, with the Monarch butterfly freeing itself from the case. Hanging from the now-empty chrysalis case, it will spend the next few hours pumping fluid into its wings until they are firm enough to fly. Eventually it will take flight and start seeking out nectar for its 1^st meal. Adult Monarch butterflies feed on flowers, which makes them pollinators. The nectar provides energy for flight, mating, and migration.

Milkweed

Milkweeds are herbaceous, perennial, flowering plants, named for their latex, a milky substance, which is exuded when the plant is damaged. It is potentially toxic to humans and many other species.  Monarchs have evolved the ability to store the toxins. Caterpillars feeding on milkweed retain the poison as chrysalids and adults. Birds and other Monarch predators dislike the toxins and learn to avoid them. (https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=19440).

Migration

The Monarch migration is extraordinary with none quite like it in the butterfly world. A Monarch butterfly begins an epic one-way journey south up to 2,800 miles to a specific place where they have never been to before, where their great-grandparent spent the previous winter. It remains largely a mystery how successive generations know the route and where to spend the winter months.

No single Monarch makes the entire round trip journey north and south. There are four to five generations each year. Three to four generations make the journey north in the spring and summer months, with each generation moving further north.  Each northward generation consists of adults feeding on nectar, mating, females laying eggs on milkweed, the parents dying, their offspring hatching from eggs, going through the larval and pupal stages, ultimately becoming adults, and continuing the cycle. The adults in these generations live two to six weeks.

Late in summer or early fall, a final generation emerges.  Triggered by changes in temperature and sunlight, this generation will migrate south. Known as the “Methuselah” generation (after the biblical patriarch said to have lived 969 years), they can live up to 6 – 8 months. They do not emerge as sexually mature butterflies, being in a “sexual diapause,” so their energies can be focused on developing flight muscles and storing lipids for their long journey south and surviving the winter months.

Come spring, with warming temperatures and longer days, these butterflies will become sexually mature, feed on nectar, mate, and start moving northward, laying eggs, which will hatch to continue the annual migration cycle.

You may see migrating Monarchs this fall in your garden feeding on nectar flowers, resting on flat flowers or rocks, or drinking from water sources.  Admire them, but leave them be, since they still have some distance to go to reach their wintering grounds. In California, their wintering spots are along coastal areas from Monterey area (Pacific Grove) to San Diego.

Monarchs in Trouble

On July 21 of this year, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) announced the Monarch butterfly has been put on its "Red List of Threatened Species as Endangered” due to habitat destruction, climate change, and pesticides, with the primary reason being reduction in milkweed plants that are so vital to their survival.

In temperate areas like the Central Valley, the tropical milkweed plant (Asclepias currasavica) does not go dormant. A parasite that lives on the plant is ingested by developing caterpillars and is linked lower migration success and reductions in lifespan. Choose milkweed species that goes through winter dormancy such as narrowleaf milkweed and showy milkweed (A. fasicularis and speciosa.) 

The IUCN announcement states: "The western population is at greatest risk of extinction, having declined by an estimated 99.9%, from as many as 10 million to 1,914 butterflies between the 1980s and 2021.” In addition, "The larger eastern population also shrunk by 84% from 1996 to 2014. Concern remains as to whether enough butterflies survive to maintain the populations and prevent extinction."

Sign up for our Free Class!

On Saturday, October 15, UCCE Stanislaus County Master Gardeners Rhonda Allen and Denise Godbout-Avant will give a talk on these marvelous butterflies that so many love. Learn about butterflies in general, more about Monarchs, their life cycle and their incredible migration, the importance of nectar plants and milkweed to their survival, and how you can help them. Free milkweed seed packets will be given to attendees.  Use the link below to register.

Date: Saturday, October 15, 2022
Time: 9:00 am – 10:30 am
Where: Stanislaus Agricultural Center, 1800 Cornucopia Way, Harvest Hall 
Register: http://ucanr.edu/monarchs/2022

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Resources:

• Art Shapiro's Butterfly Site   https://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/butterflies 
• Butterflies in Your Garden  https://ucanr.edu/sites/CEStanislausCo/files/345791.pdf
• Xerces Society - Pollinator Plants: California  https://xerces.org/publications/plant-lists/pollinator-plants-California
• UC Davis Arboretum – Larval Hosts for Butterflies https://arboretum.ucdavis.edu/blog/larval-host-plants-butterflies
• California Native Plant Society – Native Planting Guides https://www.cnps.org/gardening/choosing-your-plants/native-planting-guides
• Tropical Milkweed - a no grow  https://xerces.org/blog/tropical-milkweed-a-no-grow 
• Calscape CA native plants     https://www.calscape.org/
• UC ANR Bug Squad Blog     https://ucanr.edu/blogs/bugsquad/
• International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)  https://www.iucn.org/
• The Monarch: Saving Our Most Beloved Butterfly, by Kylee Baumle, St. Lynn's PressMilkweed Poisoning: https://www.poison.org/articles/milkweed-can-cause-serious-poisoning-204

The month of May is Garden for Wildlife month. Due to factors such as loss of habitat, pesticides exposure, and climate change, much of wildlife is being challenged today. There are many ways home gardeners can directly help birds, bees, butterflies, and other local wildlife. The saying “If you build it, they will come” applies not only to the classic baseball movie “Field of Dreams,” but also to attracting wildlife to your garden.

Plants

If you have the space, plant an oak tree! While it will take several years for the tree to mature, few plants provide more benefits to nature than an oak tree. One Valley oak tree can provide food, water, and shelter to approximately 350 vertebrate species and over 250 species of insects and arachnids.

Plant a variety of native plants which are the foundation of local food webs. Wildlife and plants evolved together in ways that were beneficial to both, plus they are adapted to local soils and weather. Native plants provide food, shelter, and places to care for their young. Native plants also tend to be water-wise, needing little watering once established.

Choose plants that bloom at different times of the year, to ensure something is always blooming during the different seasons thus providing nectar sources year-round.  Include some plants which produce berries to provide food sources attractive to birds and insects.

Create multi-layered planting. Have some canopy trees of different heights, weave in some tall, medium, and small plants, along with some groundcovers. Even a small garden can have plants of different heights to attract and shelter different types of wildlife. Arbors and trellises are also ways to grow vines, providing more variety in your garden.

Lawns lack variety, thus reducing your lawn space and replacing it with native plants will increase the diversity in your garden. Decreasing the frequency of mowing permits grasses to grow taller, allowing flowers to grow and bloom which would attract bees and butterflies. You can also sprinkle some daisy and clover seeds into your lawn to provide forage plants and flowers for many beneficial insects.

Water

Wildlife needs water. The water source(s) can be a small dish, a bird bath, a rain garden, or pond. Water in bird baths needs to be shallow since birds will not use a bath where the water is deeper than their legs. Be sure to clean and change the water frequently to prevent mosquitoes.

Ponds with aquatic-loving plants can encourage amphibians such as salamanders or toads, or wetland insects such as dragonflies, to visit and set up their homes.

Butterflies engage in behavior called “puddling,” where they stop in muddy puddles for water and nutrients. You can recreate this by filling a terra cotta saucer with soil and pebbles, sink it into the ground and keep it moist. Again, change the water regularly.

Plants and rocks around the water source(s) provide shelter, camouflage, and spots for creatures like butterflies, lizards, or turtles who like to sun themselves near water.

Housing for Bees

Most bees are solitary in nature with 70% being ground nesters like mining bees. Cavity-nesters such as mason bees comprise 30% of bees. These live in twigs, abandoned beetle holes, and other tree cavities. The social honeybees and bumble bees who live in hives or colonies make up less than 1% of all bees. Native bees are up to 200 times more efficient pollinators than honeybees. You can attract native bees to your garden by providing bare patches of dirt in out-of-the way sections and/or supply bee housing with hollow reeds or cardboard tubes in a sheltered spot that receives morning sun.

Leave the Leaves

Leaving leaves as they drop from your trees and bushes provides food and shelter for a variety of living creatures including worms, beetles, millipedes, larvae of some butterflies and moths, toads, frogs and more. These in turn attract birds, mammals, and amphibians that rely on the smaller organisms as a food source.

Chemicals

Reduce or eliminate use of pesticides and fertilizers which can be harmful to wildlife (including beneficial insects) and contaminate water resources. Instead use earth-friendly solutions such as garden mulch to discourage weeds and adding nutrients to the soil. UC Integrated Pest Management provides a source of research-based less-toxic solutions for garden pest management.

One Step at a Time

Changing your garden into a wildlife haven will likely be a step-by-step process over a period of time. Building a garden attractive to wildlife will bring you the enjoyment of watching them and the knowledge you are helping wildlife thrive.

Resources listed provide information for ways to you to build a garden attractive to wildlife.

• Butterflies in Your Garden: https://ucanr.edu/sites/CEStanislausCo/files/345791.pdf
• Sustainable Landscaping: https://ucanr.edu/sites/stancountymg/Sustainable_Landscaping/
• Trees in Your Garden:  https://ucanr.edu/sites/CEStanislausCo/files/341553.pdf
• Pollinator-Friendly Native Plants Lists: https://xerces.org/pollinator-conservation/pollinator-friendly-plant-lists
• UC IPM Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program: http://ipm.ucanr.edu/
• The Bee Gardener: The Cavities You Want to Have: https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=12785
• How to Make and Use Bee Houses for Cavity Nesting Bees: https://beegarden.ucdavis.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/How-to-build-and-use-bee-blocks.pdf

 

Denise Godbout-Avant has been a Stanislaus County Master Gardener since 2020.