City-edition monarch guides
Raise your first monarch, from egg to release, in your own yard
No kit. No mail-order caterpillars. The native plants monarchs look for, when to plant them, and what to do when the first caterpillar turns up.
One city at a time
Each guide is written for one city: its plants, its soil and its monarch windows. An edition exists only when we have the local records to back every date in it.
No. 1
How to Get Monarchs to Breed in Your Austin Yard
$17For Travis, Williamson, Hays, Bastrop and Caldwell counties. An illustrated PDF guide with a printable journal.
Planned next: San Antonio, Dallas–Fort Worth, Minneapolis–St. Paul, Chicago and New York. We don’t give dates until an edition is written.
Plate I · free to print
The whole life cycle, drawn on one plant
Egg, caterpillar, chrysalis and butterfly, all on antelope horns milkweed, the way Maria Sibylla Merian composed her plates in 1705.
Can you find the egg on a curled leaf tip, the big caterpillar eating, the one hanging in a J, the green chrysalis, the new butterfly drying its wings, and the mother feeding? The egg is in the circle too, much bigger than life.
Draft, awaiting expert review. Every plate that identifies a living thing is reviewed by a lepidopterist or a horticulturist before the guide ships.
How we know what we say
Dates
Every date in a guide comes from a sourced record, and the source is printed beside it. Where there is no record, the guide says so.
Plants
Every plant we recommend is backed by two institutions, such as a state wildlife agency and a native plant society.
Pictures
The plates are drawn with AI assistance and checked against written specs, and an expert reviews every one that identifies a living thing.