It’s that monarch-butterfly-time-of-year. Are you ready

SHOW PRIDE IN YOUR MILKWEED PROJECT: Tracy Davis will stencil this monarch butterfly on your curb if you have either 12 milkweed plants or seeds, and nectar plants in your garden. For gated HOAs, she will stencil the butterfly on a plain stepping stone for display in your yard. To learn more, phone Tracy, 951-277-3253.

What’s the Milkweed to Monarch Project? Learn more HERE

By TRACY DAVIS
Identity Committee Chairwoman

How’s your milkweed growing? The native milkweed should be sprouting by the end of February. Mine isn’t yet, but I did see sprouting milkweed at the tanning vats monument.

The monarch butterfly migration from the coast has started and peaks mid-month. With the warm winter this year, some monarchs did not migrate and those likely are the butterflies we have seen in our yards. If you have tropical milkweed, instead of cutting it back, you now can let it grow for the first generation of caterpillars.

As part of our recent cleanup along Temescal Canyon Road, we scattered hundreds of seeds of the native milkweed varieties showy milkweed, (Asclepias speciosa), and wooly pod milkweed, (Asclepias eriocarpa), adding to the wild seed bank in the soil.

We also have seeds left over to share with residents to plant in their yards. This donation was provided by longtime Temescal Valley resident and Beautification Committee member Gena Osborne.

7 Oaks Nursery is germinating the narrow leaf milkweed, (Asclepias fascicularis), for us again this year. The plants will be ready in April. Don’t miss their first sale of the season, March 17 and 18, to add more nectar plants to your yards to help attract all pollinators!