On the first of November 2013, when Mexicans celebrate a holiday called the Day of the Dead, some also celebrate the millions of monarch butterflies that, without fail, fly to the mountainous fir forests of central Mexico on that day. They are believed to be souls of the dead, returned.

This year, for or the first time in memory, the monarch butterflies didn’t come, at least not on the Day of the Dead. They began to straggle in a week later than usual, in record-low numbers. Last year’s low of 60 million now seems great compared with the fewer than three million that have shown up so far this year. Some experts fear that the spectacular migration could be near collapse.

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The number of monarch butterflies has steadily dropped around 80 percent or more by some estimates in the past 15 years, barely recovering from the lowest plummet in 2009 to 2014. The good news is that home gardeners can help offset the threat simply by planting milkweed or building waystations to offset the loss of milkweed habitats.

To help support and sustain wildlife habitat for the Monarch Butterfly and to support our programs locally, we will be giving away free milkweed seed.  

2014 was a better year by comparison to previous years and I owe a lot of our success to the Mexican Sunflower. It, without a doubt, played a huge roll in attracting monarch butterflies.

Here are some photos from 2014  -  Monarch Visitors

Mexican Sunflower info -

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