Milkweed Plant Story: Raising Monarchs in San Leandro

A San Leandro Monarch Butterfly Story

During April and May 2026, we shared a lot of information about our local Western Monarch butterflies and the native milkweed plants that support them. This was part of a special project with the San Leandro Public Library to promote their exhibit "Monarchs & Milkweed: A Story of Survival," which ran through May 30, 2026. All the resources and links we collected on this important ecological topic remain on this page of our website.

We're grateful to our many collaborators on this community project, including our friends at Homegrown Habitats San Leandro, especially Stefanie Pruegel; the San Leandro Butterfly Garden's chief steward, Lary Huls; the City of San Leandro, especially Kimberly Anderson; all of the San Leandro Public Library staff, especially Kelly Keefer; the Xerces Society's conservation biologist Isis Howard; and our local Alameda County Master Gardener, Irene Beebe.

We hope you enjoy this short story showing how one milkweed plant can support these beautiful, iconic creatures right in your own outdoor space.

From Our Nursery to Her Patio: One Milkweed Plant Makes a Difference

Meet Brenda Pineda. She works here at Evergreen as our store supervisor and one of our cashiers. If somebody picks up your phone call, it's often Brenda. You'll also see her shooting pictures around the nursery as our main photographer.

Brenda took home one of our California Native Narrow Leaf Milkweed plants earlier this spring and transplanted it into a large pot on her San Leandro patio. Soon after, she noticed a few small white eggs on the leaves.

Within days, a baby Monarch caterpillar emerged. Based on the timing, we think the eggs were likely deposited by a female Monarch while the milkweed plant was still at our nursery but only the mama butterfly knows for sure.

Soon there were multiple caterpillars on Brenda's milkweed plant, and they were very hungry. They began devouring all the leaves until only the stems remained. (This is normal and doesn't harm the plant it recovers and regrows.)

Brenda brought the caterpillars additional milkweed plants to munch on so they could grow to full size and enter the next stage of metamorphosis.

The Magic of Metamorphosis

Soon the mature caterpillars formed their chrysalises on the ceiling of a small mesh enclosure Brenda purchased from a butterfly habitat website. This gave the Monarchs a protected space, undisturbed by other critters, including Brenda's cats and curious little dog.

After two weeks, the first Monarch butterfly emerged. Brenda made plans to safely transport it to the nursery so she could release it into our new Pollinator Garden.

The young butterfly was placed in the garden on Saturday, May 16th, and plenty of pictures were taken before it took flight.

What we've learned from Monarch experts over the past few months is that this generation of butterflies will live for several weeks as they make their way east. Then they'll reproduce, and their mission will be complete.

There will be a few more successive generations as the Monarchs continue traveling toward the Rockies. But the final "Super Generation" won't reproduce right away. Instead, they'll use all their energy to fly back in the fall to coastal California, entering winter dormancy together in sheltered spots like the eucalyptus grove at the San Leandro Golf Course. Once dormancy ends in late winter or early spring, they'll leave the grove in search of local milkweed to lay their eggs, and the migratory cycle begins all over again.

Plant Milkweed Now and Keep the Cycle Going

You can still plant a Narrow Leaf Milkweed plant (Asclepias fascicularis), or the taller, thicker Showy Milkweed (Asclepias speciosa), to support any remaining caterpillars emerging in your garden. Both are hardy perennial milkweed varieties that die back in winter and re-emerge in early spring. Plant one now, and you'll help provide critical reproductive habitat for future generations of our local Monarch population.

A single milkweed plant, like the one Brenda brought home, can be enough to host an entire generation of Monarchs from egg to release a small addition to any San Leandro patio or garden with an outsized impact on local pollinator health.