YOU CAN GUIDE MONARCHS BACK TO THEIR THRONE
NUMBERS IN THE WEST HAVE PLUMMETED. HERE ARE 7 THINGS GARDENERS CAN DO
THIS IS NOT A DRILL. California is poised to lose the Western monarch butterf ly and its mysterious annual migration from the continent’s Western regions to the coastal areas between Baja and Mendocino.
The list for blame is long — habitat destruction, insecticides, herbicides and, yes, good intentions, because if you’ve ever planted a showy orange milkweed in Southern California with the goal of helping the monarch, consider yourself part of the problem.
So why should we care? First off, caterpillars are a critical food source for most songbirds, which rely heavily on the insects to feed their young. Second, butterf lies, like bees, are important pollinators. Adult monarchs sip nectar from many blossoms, and as they f lit among f lowers, they are also spreading pollen, helping the plants produce seeds, which also feed birds and other wildlife and, of course, help the plant reproduce.
And third, butterf lies are just plain beautiful, especially the monarch with its orange wings rimmed in black with white dots. Can our world afford to lose something so miraculous?
Fortunately, there are things SoCal gardeners and plant parents can do to help monarchs survive, such as eliminating any use of pesticides or herbicides on their property — but first a little background:
Eastern monarch butterf lies are well known for their famous migration from the Eastern and Central regions of the United States to Mexico each winter, where they congregate by the thousands to mate and stay warm. Their numbers have dropped significantly, from 384 million in 1996 to 60 million in 2019.
But their cousins, the Western monarchs, have seen a more terrible decline.
Western monarch numbers have been steadily dropping for decades, from 1.2 million in 1997 to 30,000 in 2019, but the most recent results from the 24th Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count are staggering — just 1,914 butterf lies total, down from the millions that used to migrate from the Pacific Northwest and Central California to overwinter along the coast from Mendocino in Northern California to Ensenada.
One of the most disturbing finds from last fall came after wildfire ripped through the area around Pacific Grove, a.k.a. Butterf ly Town, USA, in the midst of traditional migration season. During the Thanksgiving count, not a single monarch was found in Pacific Grove, a tourist mecca for people who come to marvel at the swarms of Western monarchs that congregate during the winter, clinging to eucalyptus and pine branches to find protection from cold and wind.
Monarch numbers have been dwindling for decades in Pacific Grove, said Caleb Schneider, the city’s environmental programs manager and manager of the Pacific Grove Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary, and he believes the ill-timed fires contributed to last year’s decline.
“In 1997 there were 45,000 butterflies at our sanctuary, and now there’s zero,” Schneider said. “I’m watching the extinction of a natural phenomenon.”
The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service announced in December that while the monarch butterf ly meets the criteria to be listed as an endangered species, it isn’t being added to the list because the agency must first complete plans to save 161 other endangered species. Basically, the agency is required to address those other species first, and it doesn’t have resources to do more.
The agency will review the monarch’s status each year “until it is no longer a candidate,” the announcement said. “Our conservation goal is to improve monarch populations, and we encourage everyone to join the effort.”
Bottom line: Right now, folks, it’s up to us.
Good news: There are things we can do as individuals, from creating habitats in our yards and windowsills to lobbying our leaders.
Frustrating news: You may need to rip out the milkweed plants you thought were helping. Here’s why: Monarch caterpillars eat only one plant — milkweed — and many Californians have planted the showy tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica ) to help. Indeed, most SoCal nurseries offer only tropical milkweed, a handsome non-native plant with feathery purplishgreen leaves and deep orange flowers.
But well-meaning gardeners who plant this kind of milkweed are actually harming, not helping.
The problem is that tropical milkweed doesn’t die back during the winter in temperate climates like Southern California’s, according to the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. That permits protozoa parasites (Ophryocystis elektroscirrha, or OE) to multiply on the plants, which are eaten by the caterpillars when they hatch.
When the caterpillars consume too many OE parasites, scientists believe it sickens and weakens adult monarchs, messing up their migration patterns, mating success, f light ability and lifespan. And having milkweed that blooms through the winter also disrupts the butterfly’s migration patterns, experts say.
That’s why Ron Vanderhoff, general manager of Roger’s Gardens nursery in Corona del Mar, stopped selling tropical milkweed a couple of years ago.
Moreover, the nursery has started a milkweed exchange program. When native milkweeds are available in the spring, Roger’s Gardens will provide a free native milkweed plant to customers who bring in a tropical milkweed they’ve pulled from their yard (only one free plant per person).
Vanderhoff said he understands how hard it is to pull out established plants that seem to be helping butterf lies. “Monarchs are a very emotional topic with many people, and there is a large and vocal audience of folks who think they are doing the right thing,” he wrote in an email to The Times. “It’s a lot like feeding ducks... it ‘feels’ like you are really doing a loving and wonderful thing, but you are not. You are harming the ducks.”
If you can’t bear to pull out your tropical milkweed, cut it down to the ground around Thanksgiving and keep it trimmed low until April to kill any overwintering parasites, said Travis Longcore, urban ecologist and science director for the Urban Wildlands Group.
And don’t despair. Here are seven things individuals can do to help monarchs thrive. For more information, check out the Xerces Society’s guide “Western Monarchs Are in Trouble. This Is How You Can Help.”
GROW NATIVE MILKWEED
Check with garden centers, especially native plant nurseries, to see when their native milkweed goes on sale — generally in April. Check the online Western Monarch Milkweed Mapper and plant varieties native to your area. You don’t need a yard to do this. You can do this in pots on a balcony, window sill or front porch. The most prominent native varieties sold in Southern California include narrow-leaf milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis), with clusters of tiny pink f lowers, California milkweed (Asclepias californica), with purplish f lower clusters, and woollypod milkweed (Asclepias eriocarpa), with hairy pinkish or ivory buds. You can also purchase seed and sow in a prepared garden bed or container in late winter or very early spring, especially before a rain, since milkweed germinates poorly when it’s hot. Sowing tip: Mix these small seeds with sand to make them easier to disperse.
MAKE SURE IT’S ORGANIC
Anyone who’s grown milkweed knows the plants are a magnet for bright orange aphids, so much so that some wholesale growers use systemic pesticides to produce lovely bug-free plants, said Vanderhoff, general manager at Roger’s Gardens. The problem is that homeowners take their plants home, unaware they’re laced with pesticides that will be toxic to any caterpillars that eat them. “There is no way to look at a plant in a nursery and tell if it’s been treated or not,” he said, so seek out organically grown plants. (P.S. The aphids may look unsightly, but they won’t really hurt the plant or the caterpillars, experts say. If they bother you, wash them off with a strong stream of water or — deep breath — smoosh them with gloved fingers.)
LOBBY YOUR GARDEN CENTER
If enough people start asking for native milkweed and stop buying the tropical variety, nurseries will respond. Just remember you can’t buy native milkweed in the winter because it’s dormant, so ask for seed too.
PLANT LOTS OF NECTAR FLOWERS
Unlike the one-plant caterpillar, adult monarchs happily sip the nectar from many flowers. The Xerces Society has created a list of monarch nectar plants for Southern California that includes drought-tolerant natives attractive to many butterf lies, such as black sage, bluedicks, sunf lowers, seaside fleabane and the dainty fairycap flowers of manzanita. Another good choice: native buckwheats, whose flowers support a number of pollinators. And again, you don’t need a yard to do this. A window box of lovely blooms can do the trick.
DON’T TRY TO ‘RESCUE’ MONARCHS
Scientists are still trying to understand how monarchs know when and where to migrate each year, but they have found that butterf lies raised indoors seem to lose their innate navigation system and can’t migrate properly, said Urban Wildlands’ Longcore. So if you raise monarchs, put the enclosure outdoors. The same applies to moving monarchs from one location to another in the hopes of helping their survival, Schneider said. “We’ve had people literally pick up monarchs in the Bay Area and drive them down to our sanctuary [in Pacific Grove] to release them, but by manually migrating them you might be doing more harm than good,” he said, by introducing diseases to the wild population and further disorienting the butterf lies.
KEEP AN EYE OUT
You can help researchers track the butterfly’s overwintering habits now through April 22 by taking photos of any monarchs you see as part of the Western Monarch Mystery Challenge created by researchers at the Xerces Society, UC Santa Cruz, Tufts University and Washington State University. Note the date and location and submit your photo (blurry is OK) via the free iNaturalist app or Western Monarch Milkweed Mapper or email to MonarchMystery@wsu.edu.
DON’T USE PESTICIDES OR HERBICIDES
Milkweed used to grow wild in agricultural areas or alongside roads, but the use of herbicides to kill weeds has destroyed much of the monarch’s food source, said Longcore. The advent of genetically modified crops that can withstand herbicides has made life easier for farmers, but it’s also wiped out beneficial “weeds” that support pollinators such as butterf lies and bees. Longcore said insecticides such as neonicotinoids — designed to kill sap-sucking insects such as aphids — appear harmful to butterf lies and other pollinators, since the toxic residue accumulates in the pollen and nectar of treated plants.
The best action, he said, is to avoid using these chemicals in our yards and to lobby our representatives and government agencies to phase out their use because they are devastating the beneficial insects that pollinate our food.
“We’re poisoning our insects away, but the system doesn’t work without them,” Schneider said. “Unless you want to teach hundreds of thousands of kindergartners to go around with paintbrushes and sample pollen from one flower to another, it’s not going to work.”
BAC KIN THE BEFORE TIMES, cannabis-containing edibles usually meant one thing — a weed-flavored, dry-as-sawdust chocolate brownie that may or may not actually get you high. Today, three years after legal recreational sales of THC and THC-infused foodstuffs began in the Golden State, if you’re in the mood to ingest instead of combust, the world’s your oyster, with edible options for just about every palate and of-the-moment diet out there. (We haven’t found THC-infused oysters — yet — but it’s probably only a matter of time before there are bivalves that get you baked.) The best way to figure out whether a given cannabis comestible plays nice with your dietary preferences is to read the label, since all the ingredients and nutritional information will be there (along with the amount of THC). But if you’re new to the world of edibles — or new to a particular diet — even getting to that point can feel a little overwhelming. To help with that, we’ve narrowed the foodstuffs field for you. As you embark on your exploration of edibles, do so responsibly and slowly. Remember: You can always take more, but you can’t take less. Stocking dispensaries for the products listed below can be found on the brands’ websites, unless otherwise noted.
GLUTEN-FREE
For folks with celiac disease or nonceliac gluten sensitivity, consuming the protein gluten, found in wheat, rye, barley and spelt, can cause the kind of unpleasant side effects (stomach pain and bloating to name just two) that are even less fun to deal with when you’re stoned. Luckily, the gluten-averse have a wide range of options at their disposal, including the entire line of gummies offered by Adelantobased Plus Products (3.5 to 5 milligrams per piece) in such fruity flavors as Concord grape and sour watermelon and Kikoko’s line of botanical- and THC-infused Little Helpers mints in dosages that range from 1 milligram per piece (for the hibiscus-and-orange-flavored Focus mints) to 5 milligrams (for the watermelon-and-basil-flavored Buzz mints).
KETO
You probably decided to explore the ketogenic diet because it sounded like it was invented by a super high dietitian. I mean, who else could have come up with the idea of losing weight by focusing on foods high in fat and protein (eggs, butter, cheese, bacon) and avoiding carbohydrates to kick the body into a fat-burning state called ketosis? All you need to do — beyond bellying up to the neverending breakfast bar — is be vigilant about the demon carbs and sugars that lurk everywhere. Pantry Food Co. is one of the brands that’s prominently courting the keto crowd with its Pantry Keto Bites, tiny chunks of chocolate that contain 5 milligrams THC and less than 1 gram of sugar each. (Bonus: They’re also vegan and glutenfree.) Another is Papa & Barkley (a label known for its topicals and tinctures), which launched a line of keto-friendly (as well as gluten-free and zero-calorie) Releaf gummies last summer (5 milligrams THC per piece) in four fruit flavors, two of which are also vegan.
KOSHER
Are you hoping to take your edibles game to the next level without running afoul of Jewish dietary laws? L.A.-based Fruit Slabs makes that easy: Its five flavors of fruit leathers (each square is infused with 10 milligrams of THC) are all certified kosher in addition to being glutenfree, vegan and lowcalorie. Additionally, reps for Plus Products (see above) note that the brand’s gummies use kosher ingredients but are not certified as kosher.
MEDITERRANEAN
If you join Zoom calls with a cheery “Ciao,” make your own pesto and know 14 recipes for branzino, you’re either on board with the Mediterranean diet or you’re Stanley Tucci eating your way across Italy in that new CNN miniseries. Assuming the former, the most expeditious way to shoehorn marijuana into your meal plan is to go right to the very lifeblood of the Mediterranean diet — olive oil. Potli (which also makes THC-infused sriracha sauce and honey) has partnered with Oakland-based Aster Farms to create a THCinfused extra-virgin olive oil (100 milligrams THC per 250 milliliter tin) that was supposed to be a limited-edition holiday offering but reps say turned out to be popular enough to keep producing. Olive oil is glutenfree as well as keto- and
paleo-friendly. Mangia! (L.A. stockists include Sweet Flower, Sherbinskis Fairfax and delivery service Emjay.)
ORGANIC
Hey, there, Whole Foods shopper. Your desire to treat your body like a temple by looking for an organic certification on the label may be laudable, but when it comes to finding it on THC-infused foods, it’s also futile. This has nothing to do with what’s in the product and everything to do with the fact that cannabis is illegal under federal law and that the federal government — in the form of the U.S. Department of Agriculture — oversees what gets certified as organic.
PALEO
Eating like a caveman to get a caveman’s body totally makes sense because, honestly, when was the last time you met a fat caveperson? This means you go all huntergatherer, favoring lean meats, nuts, berries and vegetables and steering clear of the grains, legumes and dairy that came with the advent of farming 10,000 years ago. Carnivores in this camp might enjoy hunting down a THC-infused beef jerky like the six f lavors offered by Stoned Age Edibles (10 milligrams THC per 4-gram stick; a few of the f lavors are also gluten-free), which claims to be the Golden State’s first licensed manufacturer of cannabis-infused meats. (A company rep calls the jerky “paleo-ish” due to small amounts of soy sauce and other nonStone Age ingredients but also notes that the jerkies are keto-friendly as well.) If you’re on team herbivore for this one, consider Kaneh Co.’s Chocolate Paleo Bites (which are also vegan and gluten-free), which contain 100 milligrams of THC per package. Kikoko’s mints (mentioned above) and cannabis-containing teas (see below) are also paleofriendly.
VEGAN
In the candy store of THC-infused edibles, hidden dangers lurk everywhere for the diehard friends of the animal kingdom; baked goods may contain eggs or butter, chocolate could contain milk, and gummies — one of the most popular infused-edibles categories — might get their gumminess from animal-derived gelatin, so tread (and chew) carefully. Rose Delights is free of such surprises, though the 4-gram cubes dusted with powdered sugar and tapioca starch (each containing 5 milligrams of THC) have a consistency closer to Turkish delight than a Haribo gummy bear. Infused with singlestrain f lower rosin, f lavors include rose hibiscus, Alphonso mango and nectarine juniper berry (the last one is a seasonal collaboration with Aster Farms), all of which are also glutenfree. Other animal product-free options include the above-mentioned Fruit Slabs, Pantry Keto Bites and a cannabisinfused peanut butter by Zendo Edibles (100 milligrams of THC per 5ounce jar).
ZERO-CALORIE / LOW-CALORIE
Maybe you’re a militant calorie counter. Or maybe you know that once you’re high, the munchies that follow will have you tearing through your pantry like a bear in a campsite up to — and most likely beyond — your suggested daily caloric intake. Either way, there are options for those who don’t want what crosses the lips to linger on the hips. Since the rest of this list is filled with riffs on old-school edibles, this might be a good place to explore pot-infused potables. Emeryville, Calif.-based Kikoko, which has been on the SoCal scene since late 2017, puts the T in THC — and THC in tea — with cannabis-infused herbal teas that range from 1 to 10 milligrams per serving and clock in at just 4 calories per cup — a level that also make it keto-friendly. (The teas are all gluten-free and vegan as well.) If you want to dial the calories all the way down to zero — and endlessly expand your beverage options at the same time — a product called ALT (short for Advanced Liquid Technology), that launched in December (and is available at Sherbinskis Fairfax and via the Emjay delivery service) should be on your radar. Each 5 or 10 milliliter vial is filled with a clear, water-compatible, odorless and (mostly) tasteless liquid that contains 5 or 10 milligrams of THC, respectively. It’s designed to be mixed into whatever beverage pleases your palate from your morning cup of coffee (hey, it’s a pandemic) to that hard-earned end-of-theday mocktail. The best part? In addition to being calorie-free it’s also gluten-free, animalproduct-free, sugar-free and keto-friendly, which makes it a good option for all but two of the above diets — and frustrating for the koshereating caveman.