This year we raised and rescued over 70 monarchs at our home. We were able to give two to our cousin for her to share in a local school where she works. The children in the classroom were able to watch the monarch caterpillar go into turn into a pupa (Chrysalis) and tag and release two.

In 2020 we certified our home as a Wildlife Habitat, and next year we hope to make it a Monarch Waystation as we plant even more milkweed and wildflowers. We do not use any pesticides that are harmful to our little heroes, the pollinators. Over the past four years, we have seen an increase in pollinators in the garden.

With the help of Save Our Monarchs and Monarch Watch, we have learned so much about the Monarch and can now tag them and report our data to help the monarch population.

Visit Hope and Wildflower’s Instagram stories to see more pictures and videos.

The Enemy

When raising monarchs, especially more than one, the chances of having one infected with tachinid fly larva are high. We lost a few due to this and had to euthanize the chrysalis. This was our first year experiencing this, and only encourages us to help the monarchs more. While these flies are very beneficial to the garden as fantastic pollinators, they are very harmful to the monarch caterpillar. Below is an image of what this looks like.