You are about to leave the Herb Pharm website. The website will open in a new browser window.
Please select "OK" to continue to the website, or close this box to return to Herb-Pharm.com.
Plants & Farm StoriesJan 30, 2025
Creating a Sanctuary for Monarch Butterflies
To help the pollinators that help us, we became an official Monarch Butterfly Waystation. We grow Milkweed, provide habitat and raise butterflies, releasing them in time for their annual migration.
Monarchs are under threat, with a decline of over 80% since the mid-1990s, mostly due to habitat loss and pesticides. Each year, millions fly to Mexico and southern California for the winter, up to 3,000 miles, then fly north during warmer months. By May, many of them visit our farms.
A 90% Survival Rate
Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) only lay their pinhead-size eggs on Milkweed. Our team collects monarch eggs by hand, then gently places each one on a moist Milkweed leaf. In the wild, less than 10% of monarch eggs survive to become adult butterflies; in captivity, the survival rate is over 90%.
Within four days, the egg hatches and a larva emerges. The caterpillars spend up to two weeks eating voraciously.
An Exclusive Diet of Milkweed
We keep adding Milkweed leaves so each caterpillar has the fuel it needs to grow. Eventually, we move the larva to a potted Milkweed plant or a bouquet of leaves inside a screened cage. They crawl into the top of the container, make a silk pad, and hang from it in a “J” shape.
A day later, the larva sheds its outer skin and becomes a vibrant green and gold-dotted pupa (chrysalis). They stay in this state for up to two weeks, then turn black, the signal that the butterfly will eclose (the technical term for hatch) within a day.
Tagged for Tracking
We place a small wing-safe tag on the bottom of each butterfly’s left wing, to help researchers track their migratory patterns. Then we release the adult butterflies into the wild, so they can continue their population's grand migration. In the summer of 2021 alone, we raised and released 138 butterflies. While most of them head north when the weather warms again, those that eclose at the end of the season return south. Butterflies born on our farms have been sighted more than 700 miles away in southern California.
If you want to help the monarch butterflies in your area, you can create a Monarch Butterfly Waystation in your own garden. Visit MonarchWatch.org to learn more.
How We Maintain a Monarch Waystation
Supporting pollinators is essential to our mission of taking care of plants. Learn how our own team members keep our Monarch Waystation going strong.