Western monarch butterflies are on the verge of extinction.

@alison @akkana @logicalelegance I am planting ever more California native milkweeds.

Last year we had many Monarch caterpillars - that ate and effectively killed their host milkweeds. I never saw a chrysalis.

@alison @logicalelegance I've planted milkweeds, several years, but I'm such a bad gardener I never had any success with them. I've only seen a monarch around here once, at the Audubon center in Santa Fe.

Only seen fireflies once, an unspectacular display on a lawn in a park in Washington DC. Dave and I took a tour through the midwest in summer a few years ago, but we had no luck finding fireflies. I gather they're quite a bit less common than they used to be.

@akkana @alison
Growing up in California, I unconsciously classified fireflies in the same unlikely to be real bin.

I spent a college sophomore summer at CMU and thought I was having a stroke with lights winking in and out in my peripheral vision. (I also spent a lot of time outside in thunderstorms because I like rain and SoCal desert rain doesn't usually include chance of death (except in washes with floods)).

Fireflies were the weirdest, coolest, unlikeliest insect possible.

@karlauerbach @alison @akkana

It is so important to plant the right milkweeds! I'm glad you said CA natives.

Note, we don't really want the butterflies to pupate here in Santa Cruz: they are only for resting and snacking on our plants (overwintering). Our monarchs tend go to the Rockies to reproduce.

@logicalelegance @alison @akkana I was surprised how selective the Monarchs are for specific types of milkweed.

Last summer we almost always had a few Monarchs fluttering around our gardens.

I planted at least two kinds of California native milkweeds. The Monarchs clearly preferred the variety with the long thin leaves. (So I gathered seeds from those plants and will be starting them soon in my greenhouse.)

The Mediterranean milkweeds have nicer looking flowers - that's the variety that is planted all around the Santa Cruz city hall.

@logicalelegance @akkana Fireflies were ever-present on warm summer nights in Pennsylvania where I grew up. I feel sad to imagine a time without them.