Monarch Butterflies Come to Los Angeles

Like most house projects, it took us a while to get around to it, but in the winter of 2006, we tore up our front lawn.  The collective gasp from our lush green front lawn neighborhood was palpable, as they waited to see just what we had in mind.  Now, our front garden is “green” in the eco sense - low water, no pesticides, no mowing, no blowing, but the colors range from yellow to orange to dashes of purple, and some green, just not “grass green.”  We had been inspired by cousin Jessica Tuck’s low-water native plant landscaping, and asked her garden designer to help us with ours.  When Garden Gal Grace suggested planting some butterfly friendly plants - milkweed for Monarch Butterflies in particular, the variety asclepias tuberosa - I loved the notion of providing habitat, but little did I know what magic we had in store for us as a family.

Grace positioned the milkweed near a south facing wall of our house, which also happens to be near our front door.  That makes it easy to keep track of the butterflies’ life cycle as we come and go.  My boys first noticed tiny yellow, white and black stripped caterpillars inching their way on the stems of the milkweed plants.  Baby Monarch caterpillars only eat milkweed, which means that adults need to lay their eggs on the underside of milkweed leaves- and those babies eat a lot!  Pretty soon they grew fat, and the plants looked well munched.  Then, Alexander - my big guy, noticed the caterpillars crawling onto the walls of the house and attaching themselves to the underside of the window ledges, forming a J shape.  A day later, those Js turned into light green jewels, with a gold thread circling the top part - this was the chrysalis, or pupa stage.  In a couple of weeks, the adults emerged, fully transformed, beautiful, ready to take off once their wings dried.

We see the butterflies for a few months in the fall on their southward migration path, and we get a few in the spring on their way back north.  In a land where the weather is so constant, they have become seasonal markers for us, reminding us that some of our fellow creatures are preparing for winter.  When the butterflies are doing their thing, my young sons see science in action, learn to observe the natural world and see for themselves that transformative change is possible.  Their enthusiasm is irrepressible as they stop visiting friends and neighbors to share their knowledge and insights and point out the butterflies in their various stages.

Our next project?  Maybe we’ll get our front yard certified as a Butterfly Garden by the North American Butterfly Association or work with the National Wildlife Association to get certified as a Wildlife Habitat.  Both organizations provide easy to follow instructions on their sites, and at the end of the process you can display a sign which explains what makes your garden a habitat.  Sounds to me like one of those things that is good for the creatures, good for the kids, and good for the planet.

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