SAN ANTONIO – In recent years butterfly populations have seen a decline but you can help save them — for free.
Live Monarch Educational Foundation has a program that sends free butterfly garden seeds to anyone who mails in an envelope.
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All you need to do to get the 15 or more free seeds is send one, self-addressed, stamped envelope to Live Monarch and the organization will send milkweed seeds native to your area. The address can be found on the Live Monarch website.
“It is a favorite egg-laying plant which grows quickly and will sprout many seed pods,” according to Live Monarch. “From time to time we may have other types and do our best to send them back to the regions where they were gathered.”
If you’d like more seeds, you can also include a donation and Live Monarch will send 40 or more seeds per dollar as a thank you.
“These same seed packs sell all over the web for $2 - $4 for only a few seeds,” according to the Live Monarch website.
If you choose to pay for the seeds, there is also an option to purchase them directly from the foundation.
“You will receive seeds and full-color Monarch rearing instruction sheets, milkweed growing instructions and our heartfelt thanks,” Live Monarch officials said. “The information sheet is preprinted for you to keep as a reference sheet and to share the education to help Monarchs and butterflies in every life stage.”
At the end of 2020, the Xerces Society published a study that said the Western Monarch Butterfly population reached an all-time low.
The study noted that only 2,000 butterflies were seen in the 2019 season — down from nearly 30,000 just two years prior.
“Butterflies make our world more beautiful. I don’t think anybody can argue with that. But they also make our world livable, and everyone needs to understand that,” Marianna Treviño-Wright, executive director of the National Butterfly Center previously told KSAT.
Treviño-Wright said to help restore butterfly populations, people should plant native species of plants that butterflies need to survive like the milkweed plants.
For a guide on how to plant a butterfly-friendly garden, count butterflies and learn about habitat restoration, visit Mission Monarch.