But these wasps aren’t out for human blood, and their presence in your milkweed is a benefit to butterflies. Learn why these scary-looking insects are actually a wonder to have around the garden!

Your Milkweed is Working as Designed

Tarantula hawks are one of the main pollinators of milkweed. If you’re planting milkweed to support pollinators, then seeing these wasps around means your garden is succeeding!

Plus, by pollinating milkweed and other native plants, tarantula hawk wasps help ensure these important plants continue to grow in the landscape to provide habitat for monarchs and other pollinators. The wasp at the flower and the monarch you’re hoping to support are linked through the same plant.

Find milkweed for monarchs (and wasps) with our Native Plant Finder!

Tarantula Hawks are Docile While Foraging

Tarantula hawks at flowers are almost always docile. Foraging time is strictly for gaining energy, and aggression costs energy; there’s no reason for a nectaring wasp to spend its calories chasing a human. Pretty much the only time a foraging tarantula hawk will sting is if someone touches it or swats at it, in which case it is trying to protect itself. Stand near a milkweed full of these wasps and they will ignore you completely while they eat.

Aggression is for Rival Wasps, Not Humans

Male tarantula hawks claim dominance through a behavior called hilltopping, which is essentially the children’s game King of the Hill played by wasps.

A dominant male perches on the highest, most conspicuous post near foraging grounds—a tall shrub, the corner of a building, the tip of a fence—and launches out to investigate anything that moves past, including humans!

He’s checking whether the moving object is a rival male to be chased away or a receptive female to mate with. Either way, he needs to arrive at speed. Wait a few seconds, and the male will return to his post once he realizes you are not a wasp.

Male Wasps Can’t Sting

This is the most important point: only female tarantula hawks have stingers. The males doing the dramatic intercept flights from their perches, the ones that might feel like they are “chasing” you, are physically incapable of stinging. They might look terrifying but are completely harmless.

Females, meanwhile, spend most of their time in that calm, can’t-be-bothered foraging mood. When they’re not foraging, they’re hunting tarantulas—which is what the species name refers to. This is the only kind of animal they will sting aggressively, and they do it for a reason: to bring back to her nest, alive but paralyzed, to feed her young. Females do not chase humans. They chase tarantulas!

Designing Gardens with Tarantula Hawks in Mind

When gardening with milkweed in tarantula hawk territory, a couple design choices can substantially reduce unwanted encounters:

1. Tuck milkweed away from high-traffic paths and tall conspicuous perches. Doorways, walkways, and the immediate edges of buildings are exactly where you don’t want a hilltopping male to set up. Group plantings away from those zones when possible.
2. Build a better perch. If the affected area is near a building or other structure that’s currently the tallest perch around, consider installing a pole with a small platform on top, taller than the building, set about thirty feet away in a quieter spot. This may pull territorial males off the building edge and into a location where their displays won’t startle anyone.

The Bigger Picture

A milkweed planting that attracts tarantula hawks is a planting that’s pulling in real pollinator diversity. The same flowers feeding the wasps are feeding monarchs, native bees, and more. The wasps are also keeping the local tarantula population in check, which, depending on where you live, is a service worth keeping around.

Once you can read the behavior, these encounters stop feeling like attacks and start looking like what they actually are: a healthy native ecosystem doing its thing, loudly, right outside the front door.

Once you learn to read those signals, planting for specific pollinator groups becomes easy. Here, we’ll teach you all you need to know to join the conversation!

Pollination Syndromes: How Plants Advertise to Pollinators

Not all plants are pollinated by animals, but about 90% of flowering plants have evolved to attract animal pollinators specifically. It benefits a plant species to focus on one pollinator or a group of pollinators. If all flowers shared the same pollinators, there’s a good chance a lot of pollen will be wasted as the animals visit every other flower species around.

Botanists call these signal patterns ‘pollination syndromes’: predictable traits that reveal which pollinator the flower is courting. Four of these traits do the most talking:

1. Shape: Tube length, opening angle, whether there is space to land
2. Color: Whatever is brightest in the target pollinator’s spectral vision
3. Scent: Sweet, musky fermented, or absent entirely
4. Timing: Day or night openings, seasonal peak

These rules aren’t ironclad (and plenty of flowers are visited by multiple pollinators), but they’re good indicators for who’s meant to show up. Here’s how these traits sort among six groups of pollinators.

Flowers that Attract Bees

Bees are the workhorses of pollination, and was the first species group to evolve as pollination specialists. Flowers built for them tend to be generous with nectar and easy to use.

• Shape: open bowls, landing platforms, or short tubes they can wedge into
• Color: yellow, blue, and purple
• Scent: fresh, sweet, pleasant, strong floral perfumes
• Timing: warm daytime hours (bees turn sluggish below about 55°F, so temperature matters)

Native examples: penstemon, goldenrod, sunflower, and baby blue eyes

Flowers that Attract Butterflies

Butterflies forage mostly by sight and can’t hover, so they need flashy flowers that double as a landing strip. Many flowers built for butterflies also end up attracting some bees.

• Shape: flat, clustered flowers that act as a runway, or long narrow tubes that match a coiled proboscis
• Color: bold pinks, oranges, and purples (butterflies can see muted reds that most bees miss!)
• Scent: faint to mild; showy color is more important
• Timing: daytime in full sun, since most butterflies need to bask before they can fly well

Native examples: Joe-pye weed, butterfly weed, coneflower, and blazing star

Flowers that Attract Moths

When the bees clock out, the moths clock in. In fact, moths evolved from butterflies and took the night shift to take advantage of nectar resources when butterflies aren’t active. Color is far less important than scent for night foragers.

• Shape: long narrow tubes for hovering hawkmoths; open dishes for smaller settling moths
• Color: white, pale pink, or dull yellow (colors that hold light at dusk and catch moonlight)
• Scent: strong and sweet, often released only after dark
• Timing: open or fragrant at dusk and through the night, with many closing by morning

Native examples: phlox, yucca, wild tobacco, and evening primrose

Flowers that Attract Hummingbirds

Hummingbirds, like many birds, have an underdeveloped sense of smell, but unlike most of our other pollinators, they can see red. Hummingbirds are also burn fuel very fast, so their flowers are bright, sugar-rich, and built to keep insects out.

• Shape: long narrow tubes, often tilted down or outward, that exclude most insects
• Color: bright red, orange, and hot pink (birds see red; most insect competitors don’t)
• Scent: little to none
• Timing: daytime, especially mornings and late afternoons when hummingbirds are most active, with nectar refilled often

Native examples: cardinal flower, wax currant, trumpet vine, trumpet honeysuckle

Flowers that Attract Bats

In the American Southwest and the tropics, nectar-feeding bats pollinate many important plants—including the agave behind your margarita! Because bats are much larger than other pollinators, flowers signaling for bats must provide a large amount of dilute nectar.

• Shape: large, robust, bowl- or bell-shaped flowers; many must be sturdy enough for a bat to rest, but some bats hover
• Color: pale white, green, or purple (because bats navigate with echolocation rather than sight, color barely matters)
• Scent: strong, musky, fermented, sometimes sulfurous
• Timing: open at night, often for a single night

Native examples: agave, saguaro, organ pipe cactus, and desert willow

Flowers that Attract Carrion Flies

Not every pollinator wants a sweet reward. Some flowers court carrion flies by impersonating exactly what flies love—rot. These flowers do not reward their pollinators with nectar. They don’t even produce nectar!

• Shape: deep, trap-like flowers that mimic carrion or dung
• Color: dull maroon, brown, mottled green, or speckled to mimic corpses and rot
• Scent: strongly putrid, like rotting meat or feces
• Timing: day or night, depending on species; flies stay active in cool, cloudy weather

Native examples: pawpaw, skunk cabbage, wild ginger, and red trillium

A Pollinator-Plant Cheat Sheet

Use this cheat sheet to learn the language of plants and pollinators!

Invite Pollinators to Your Garden

You don’t need to court every pollinator on this list (and depending on where you live, you couldn’t). The point is to plant with intention: choose natives that match the pollinators already in your region, and aim for a range of colors, shapes, and bloom times so something is always advertising!

Check out NWF’s Native Plant Finder to see which native plants support the most butterflies and moths where you live!

We asked you to share your gardens with us, and you didn’t disappoint! Check out these stories and photos from wildlife gardeners across the country.

A Michigan Oasis

“Our yard has been a slow and deliberate change to create an ecofriendly environment for all of nature.  Even small spaces can have a big impact on helping our native species to survive!  The payback is not only the enjoyment of watching the wildlife but also feeling like we are helping to protect plants and animals in these challenging times. As I write this a pair of Mallard ducks just flew in.”

– Gaye

Californian Pollinator Paradise

“I knew I wanted my small patio and garden area filled with California native plants right when I purchased my home. I already knew they were water efficient and wanted to see local wildlife visit.

“I slowly began replacing some of the decorative and invasive plants with natives. I’ve added California Wild rose, poppy, fire sage, indigo sage, lavender, Mexican Elderberry, prickly pear cactus and native lilac. I’ve slowly landscaped for rain collection, using natural stones and other organic materials such as logs, minimizing runoff, flooding and erosion.

“The plants thrive, giving seasonal blooms, but need very little care. Although this has been a five-year ongoing process, I saw healthier soil and increased pollinator presence within the first year. Since then, I’ve been greeted by ever-more diversity in bugs and birds, such as the California bumble bee and the Western Bluebird! This is now my fourth year hosting monarchs, and they just keep coming back, just as the milkweed does.

“I am an important part of my ecosystem, wherever I live. I want my garden to remind me every day. It is also nice that I’m conserving water and saving money, of course.”

– Shara

A Pennsylvania Prairie

“My garden was the reason we purchased our home in 2021. We tell folks we bought a garden and a house came with it! The previous owner had created a garden with many native and medicinally useful plants, and we have built upon those themes since.

“We have practiced a ‘laissez-faire’ approach, allowing more native volunteer plants to grow. We have learned so much by doing this, that we are now expanding our native beds and adding permaculture practices.”

– Barbara

Arizona Desert Garden

“I bought an old home that was neglected in the downtown area of Phoenix. The house only takes up 10% of the property but the property was just a dirt lot when we moved in. Our goal is to bring structure, function, and biodiversity to the place while incorporating natives, with a few exceptions. Not having a lot of money, our garden has progressed from cuttings, seeds and unwanted seedlings. To date we have over 30 species of plants represented, have registered over 40 bird species and the lizard abundance has shot up. Most importantly, we have identified dozens of pollinators that visit in the spring blooms.

“As a wildlife biologist, I know the inherent value of biodiversity to our own health, both physical and mental. But more importantly we need to promote wildlife habitat in urban settings as larger wildlife habitats continue to decrease.”

– Adam

Get Your Garden Certified and Share Your Story!

You can make a difference in your own outdoor space starting today. Even small spaces like balconies and courtyards can have a huge impact.

Get your garden recognized as a Certified Wildlife Habitat here and share your story with us!

Find a Public Garden that is a Certified Wildlife Habitat

There is a long history of the National Wildlife Federation recognizing public gardens for their wildlife friendly actions. Even as far back as 2003, the U.S. Botanic Garden was named the 100,000^th Certified Wildlife Habitat.

Today, roughly 200 public gardens nationwide are recognized as Certified Wildlife Habitats. You can visit one in your region to get inspiration for your own wildlife garden. See how these gardens use native species, water features, and landscaping to support wildlife and make their space enjoyable for people too.

Find a Certified Wildlife Habitat public garden near you.

Garden Highlight: The Botanical Garden of the Ozarks, AK

“The Botanical Garden of the Ozarks is proud to be a Certified Wildlife Habitat, with a strong focus on native plants and pollinator education. Our dedicated Ozark native plant garden showcases species that support local ecosystems and provides a model for visitors looking to incorporate natives at home.

We also partner with organizations such as White River Nursery and the Northwest Arkansas Master Naturalists to offer educational programming and seasonal native plant sales.

Pollinator conservation is a core part of our work. In partnership with the Northwest Arkansas Beekeepers Association, we maintain an on-site apiary and provide educational opportunities focused on the importance of bees and other pollinators.”

– Ashley Wardlow, Executive Director at The Botanical Garden of the Ozarks

Garden Highlight: Cape Fear Botanical Garden, NC

“Cape Fear Botanical Garden (Fayetteville, North Carolina) supports a variety of native plants and pollinator species throughout key areas of the Garden, including the Butterfly Stroll, Pond Lawn, and Wellons Arbor.

These connected spaces create an expanded habitat where pollinators can feed, nest, and rest, contributing to a healthier local ecosystem. 

These plantings also support a wider range of wildlife, including birds, beneficial insects, and other native species that rely on these habitats for food and shelter.

Beyond these cultivated areas, the Garden’s wooded trails provide important habitat for larger mammals that often go unseen within the city.

While visitors may occasionally spot white-tailed deer, the Garden supports a broader range of species, reinforcing its role as a meaningful urban refuge for wildlife.

By designing and preserving these varied spaces, we not only support wildlife activity but also make it visible and accessible to our guests. Visitors are able to observe these interactions in real time, deepening their understanding of the essential role native plants and habitats play in sustaining both pollinators and the broader ecosystem.”

– Beth Hess, Marketing Consultant at Cape Fear Botanical Garden

Garden Highlight: Smithsonian Gardens

The Smithsonian Gardens was the 81st public garden to get recognized as a Certified Wildlife Habitat® back in 2020.

“Each Smithsonian Garden adeptly weaves the theme of specific museums to the natural history and elements of the habitat gardens on their grounds.  Recent reports of the loss of 3 billion birds across North America since 1970 make exhibits like the National Museum of Natural History’s Urban Bird Habitat essential.

The exhibit highlights the diversity of spaces where birds live and raise their young through large-scale realistic nests. The African American Museum’s Live Oak grove tells the story of the shelter and gathering place these trees provided in the African American journey to freedom and community building.

The story then connects the sheltering theme to how oak trees provide multitudes of insects, birds, and other wildlife with a place of cover. For example, an oak tree is a host for over 500 insect species.”

– Mary Phillips, National Wildlife Federation

Learn more about this garden here!

Go Public Gardens!

Go Public Gardens is a year-round initiative led by The American Public Gardens Association to encourage the public to visit, value, and volunteer at public gardens.

With so many public gardens that are Certified Wildlife Habitats, we hope you take the time to visit one near you.

We need to celebrate the communities and all generations throughout the monarch flyway that are contributing to this success, and at the same time, we need to take stock of what is working and continue with our efforts to recover the monarch butterfly whose future remains uncertain. 7.24 acres is indeed a success compared to the previous season, but the goal for the overwintering population established in 2015 is 15 acres.

One thing we can be certain contributes to the recovery of the monarch butterfly are the many small native plant habitats that jewel the landscape. These smaller gardens are essential habitat that help connect to larger native plant spaces, creating safe intervals for the monarch butterfly to fly between areas of rest and nourishment during their long migration.

Schools as Hubs for Monarch Education and Outreach

As hubs of their community, schools can play a vital role in connecting urban centers to larger swaths of habitat. When schools create gardens for the monarch butterfly with native milkweed and nectar plants, they are not only creating a safe space for monarchs to refuel and lay their eggs in the spring, but they also often create a ripple effect of habitat education, replication, and stewardship into their surrounding community.

Schools serve as the place community members and volunteers can engage to learn and take action, whether helping to build and maintain the gardens or learning from the students and discovering free resources. They are also the place community members can give back by sharing their knowledge.

Monarch Heroes Schools

As part of Monarch Heroes 10^th Anniversary Celebration, we lift up a handful of the schools who are serving as hubs for monarch butterfly recovery in their communities. Below are some stories from across Texas of how Monarch Heroes gardens have grown beyond school grounds.

Teachers from Woodlawn Academy (San Antonio) and Pattersen Elementary (Houston) take gardening from school to home and build neighborhood and family connections in the process.

Lucia Francese, Teacher, Woodlawn Academy, San Antonio

Monarch Heroes has not only changed my way of teaching but my way of living. I am much more conscious of native plants. I have started growing native plants on my balcony. I have convinced friends to plant native plants in their yards, and this spring on my drive from San Antonio to Houston, I called my mom to describe in detail all the native wildflowers blooming along the highways. This program helped me take my interest in conservation to a true passion and has given me the tools to not only take personal action, but to inspire others to take action as well.

Maria Karen Locke, Teacher, Pattersen Elementary, Houston

Inspired and motivated by the Monarch Heroes garden at our school, I planted a monarch habitat garden at my home. I included milkweed and nectar-rich flowers to support monarch butterflies and other pollinators throughout their life cycle. I continue to expand my garden and share what I’ve learned with my family, neighbors and community. I have shared its purpose with my co-teachers, adminstrators, students and families, discussed my personal experience creating a home habitat, and encouraged participation in planting and caring for the garden.

Students and families have also been inspired to take action at home by reviving their existing gardens with native plants or by starting small pollinator-friendly gardens, and planting milkweed to support monarch butterflies. Many have also inquired about which pollinator plants to use and where to get them. So, we know they are taking it seriously!

School garden teams at Ann Richards Middle School (Austin), Baker Montessori (Houston), and Diamond Hill Elementary (Fort Worth) build community connections and support for gardens through spreading neighborhood gardens and the value of habitat stewardship.

Carey Warner, Teacher, Ann Richards Middle School, Austin, TX

Through a year-long senior project on geriatric depression, students at Ann Richards Middle School explored practical ways to support emotional well-being in adults over 65. Their research revealed that regular exposure to nature can significantly improve mood and help reduce symptoms of depression. Inspired by these findings, the students partnered with the South Austin Senior Activity Center to create a native plant monarch garden.

Now certified by the National Wildlife Federation, the garden serves as a vital habitat for monarch butterflies, offering food and shelter during their migration. But its impact goes beyond environmental benefits. The garden has become a shared community space where seniors can connect, contribute, and find creative inspiration. Whether tending to the plants or using the space for art, participants often experience a renewed sense of purpose and belonging—key factors in reducing loneliness.

Feedback from the community has been overwhelmingly positive. In a survey conducted by the students, every respondent at the Activity Center said the monarch garden brought them joy, and all expressed interest in learning more about it and seeing it expand.

Simone Roemhild, Teacher, Baker Montessori, Houston, TX

Learning about native plant species has shaped our decision processes about what to plant throughout our campus. As neighbors and by-passers notice us creating habitat, they get curious. We now have a regular group of families taking care of the Spark-Park, and we have had several parents lead planting events in collaboration with Trees for Houston. As we establish more “planted islands” at the perimeter of our school, neighbors are starting to feel comfortable and encouraged to plant herbs, native flowers and grasses. Slowly but surely, we are enticing humans to start connecting and stewarding these little islands of public lands in the heart of H-Town (Houston).

Tina Culp-McDonald, Teacher Diamond Hill Elementary, Fort Worth, TX

At our Earth Day celebration, several parents shared with me that their children are more aware of the nature around them and have even scolded a parent or two for being careless with plants and/or insects at home. We made seed balls and students and parents were able to drop them in areas of the neighborhood that could use some brightening up. One parent said her daughter now wants to make a pollinator space in the backyard and had asked mom if they could get a tree trimmed so there would be more light.

Whether community members volunteer to create monarch gardens, attend student led campus community forums or volunteer to share their knowledge with students, the ripple effect and impact on monarch conservation is real.

A teacher from Cunningham Elementary (Austin) switches career paths to found a non-profit, PEAS, and support school gardens across a city.

Lauren Maples, Founder and Executive Director of PEAS, Austin, TX (Former teacher Cunningham Elementary, Austin)

Building upon my experience as a teacher at Cunningham Elementary, at PEAS (Partners in Education, Agriculture, and Sustainability), we have extended the impact of the Monarch Heroes program by incorporating pollinator education into our broader curriculum and supporting other schools in developing and enhancing their own pollinator gardens. The lessons and practices rooted in the Monarch Heroes program now reach additional educators, students, and communities beyond a single campus.

Students often take on the role of educators within their own households. They encourage their families to avoid pesticide use and help them understand how even small actions can support pollinators. Some families extend their involvement into the broader community by tending the school gardens and advocating for pollinator-friendly landscaping in shared spaces. These actions demonstrate how the Monarch Heroes program helps cultivate not only knowledge but a sense of responsibility that carries beyond the classroom and into the community.

Resources

• To learn more about the Monarch Heroes program visit our website.
• To help your students advocate for the Monarch butterfly in their city, consider having them write a letter to their mayor. A template letter is available here.
• Come and Celebrate 10 years of Monarch Recovery with the Monarch Heroes Program at our spring student showcases in May: Austin, San Antonio and Houston.

1. Gardening Can Help Decrease Anxiety, Depression, and Stress

Just being outside can be incredibly good for our mental health, but when you add the physical element of moving around in the garden to plant, water, and pull weeds, the positive impacts are undeniable. Many studies have shown that gardening can reduce stress, improve mood, and generally supplement well-being.

2. Listening to Backyard Birds Can Reduce Stress

When you garden for wildlife, many species will visit your yard. One of the first visitors you may notice are songbirds. They will likely come to your yard to eat seeds and insects off native plants and maybe even to build nests in the foliage. Attracting birds to our gardens is especially good for our mental health because listening to just six minutes bird song has been proven to reduce anxiety and paranoia. Scientists believe this is, primarily, because birds stop singing when they perceive threats, and so hearing birdsong generally indicate that no predators are nearby.

3. Soil Bacteria Can Improve Mood

When we think of the benefits of gardening, our immediate thought may not be about the dirt beneath our nails, but  it turns out that  that soil microbes might be part of the payoff! Research on the common soil bacteria Mycobacterium vaccae has been shown to trigger anti-inflammatory responses in the brain and  increase serotonin, which regulates mood.

While most of this work has been in animal models, researchers have indicated that it’s good for people to be outdoors and have contact with these bacterium too—and in fact, our modern disconnection from soil microbes may partly explain rising rates of stress-related disorders.

4. Watching Wildlife Can Improve our Wellbeing

One of the great joys of wildlife gardening is that you will start to see animals benefit from your yard. From butterflies visiting flowers to bunnies hopping through the foliage, there are tons of opportunities to sit back and watch wildlife outside your window. These kinds of interactions with wildlife have been shown to improve our wellbeing and help us feel more connected to nature.

5. Gardening is Good for the Body (Which is Good for the Mind)

Gardening includes all kinds of movement including walking, carrying heavy objects, and squatting. Gardening encourages you to move in various ways that serve as both strength training and cardio. The benefits of both strength and cardio for our health can’t be overstated, from positive impacts to our heart health to improvements on overall life expectancy. Gardening is a great way to earn all of the benefits of working out, while helping wildlife too!

6. Gardening is Especially Beneficial as We Get Older

On top of all of the benefits we’ve already covered, being in the garden is especially good for us as we get older. Gardening can improve self-esteem, provide meaningful exercise, and even offer opportunities for social engagement as we age, particularly if you’re gardening in community spaces.

Get Gardening!

This month, you can get involved by turning your own garden into a wildlife habitat! Try planting native species to help wildlife and see if your garden is ready to become a Certified Wildlife Habitat® in our online quiz!

1. Plan Your Garden with Native Plant Lists

Take time this April to sit down and plan your garden. One great goal is to add 5 more native species into your garden this year. Take a look at our keystone plant lists by ecoregion or go to our Native Plant Finder where you can get a custom native plant list by zip code!

2. Take a Personality Quiz to Find Out Which Native Plant YOU Are!

It’s rare that we think of plants as having personalities, but plants have a lot of interesting adaptations that give them character. Native Plant Month is a great time to take our Native Plant Personality Quiz, to see which native plant YOU are most like!

3. Buy Native Plants at 15% Off!

Use the code PLANTNATIVE15 for 15% off plant orders* at Garden for Wildlife Inc and get native plants shipped right to your doorstep!

Garden for Wildlife Inc ships to all 48 continental states and features collections of chemical-free plants that are backed by science to help the highest number of declining wildlife species.

*Excludes merch, gift cards, and bulk products. This code will only be active April 1 through April 30. This code cannot be combined with any other discount or markdown.

4. Get Your Garden Certified at 20% Off!

For the month of April, you can get your garden recognized as a Certified Wildlife Habitat® and get a yard sign, all for 20% off with the code GARDEN20 when you certify!

These signs are a great way to communicate the impact and intent of your garden to neighbors.

5. Learn How to Use Cues of Care in Your Native Garden

One question we get a lot from gardeners is about how to make their native garden look inviting and tidy to their neighbors. Just because your garden supports wildlife, doesn’t mean it needs to look wild. Find out how you can use cues of care in your garden to make it neighbor-friendly! Learn more here.

6. Create a Native Plant Container Garden

Providing essential wildlife habitat doesn’t have to take acres— it can even be done in a small container garden! Read up on our tips for creating a native plant container garden, perfect for anyone with a balcony, deck, courtyard, or window boxes!

7. Plant a Monarch-Friendly Garden

Monarch caterpillars are picky eaters. They can only eat one thing: milkweed. Milkweed is what we call their “host plant”, meaning that the caterpillar depends on it as a food source and cannot survive without it.

Discover which milkweed is best for monarchs and how you can select other nectar plants for a monarch-friendly garden! Learn more here.

8. Share Your Native Plant Journey!

Have you been planting native in your garden? We want to hear your story and see photos of your incredible landscape! Share it with us here.

These inspiring stories from gardeners like you may be shared in a blog, on social media, and even on our website as a way to inspire other gardeners to get planting.

The state of Maryland has identified the neighborhood as having significant environmental justice concerns including air and water quality, heat and flood risks, and other impacts of pollution. Through engagement, service, and advocacy, the Druid Heights Community Development Corporation (Druid Heights CDC) is working closely with the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) to re-develop and revitalize the green spaces in one of Baltimore’s oldest neighborhoods to improve these conditions.

Environmental Outreach, Education, and Engagement Projects

Despite sitting near Druid Hill Park and the Jones Falls creek, infrastructure like large highways, train tracks, and lack of access points keep the neighborhood disconnected from natural spaces. As part of Druid Heights CDC’s ongoing efforts to better connect neighbors to nature and address wider watershed health issues, NWF is once again partnering with the community to support greening and watershed education through the Druid Heights to Jones Falls project. This project combines public education on water quality, water pollution, and local watersheds with restoration of community green spaces.

In addition to working with Grow Home (a local youth leadership and green workforce development program aimed at revitalizing the existing rain and pollinator gardens at the Druid Heights Peace Park and Elijah Cummings Nature Play Space), the Druid Heights CDC and NWF are hosting a series of workshops and educational events as part of the Druid Heights to Jones Falls project.

Rather than simply restoring green community spaces, the partnership will help deepen the connection between Druid Heights residents and the Jones Falls Watershed by offering hands-on experiences in understanding how small-scale infrastructure can improve watershed health.

With the right tools, residents of this historic neighborhood have the power to improve the health of their community and local environment.

Educational Workshops

A key component of the Druid Heights to Jones Falls project is supporting community members in building a relationship with their green spaces. By targeting key age groups with specially designed events, community members will be invited to explore their unique role in protecting the Jones Fall Watershed.  

In December 2025, the first event took students from the Druid Heights CDC after school program on a field trip for an educational nature walk at Druid Hill Park and along the Jones Falls creek to learn about the interconnection of the park, stream, and Druid Heights within the Jones Falls Watershed and the Chesapeake Bay.

Upcoming events will take the after school program on a second field trip to the Baltimore Harbor, work with summer campers to stencil storm drains, engage adults from the Green Thumb Club in park clean-up and planting events, and invite seniors on a field trip to learn about watersheds, stormwater, flooding, and pollution and how best to protect waterways, improve ecological conditions, and advocate for positive environmental change.

The final two events will be community planting and “spruce-up” days at the Elijah Cummings Nature Play Space and Druid Heights Peace Park. By cleaning trash, removing invasive plants and weeds, and planting new trees, shrubs, and perennials, residents will help restore the ecological functionality of these important spaces.

Measuring Success

In this historic neighborhood, the Druid Heights to Jones Falls project looks to connect an already interconnected community to the green spaces and watersheds that impact their water quality and ecological health.

The ultimate measure of success for this Chesapeake Bay Trust funded work will be in seeing renewed interested in active, positive use of community green spaces and residents who feel empowered to advocate for improved water quality in the Jones Fall and Chesapeake Bay Watersheds.

Supporting communities in building their capacity to steward green spaces, green stormwater infrastructure, and wildlife habitat is a long-term process. With sustained commitment to the Druid Heights community and the health of their watershed, the National Wildlife Federation, Druid Heights CDC, and residents of this historic neighborhood are taking steps small yet critical steps toward community and ecological resilience.

In the spring, the Eastern and Western populations of monarchs migrate northeast and northwest, respectively, reaching the U.S. border with Canada. In autumn, both populations migrate to their wintering sites. The Eastern population migrates to the high and cold mountains of central Mexico, and the Western population migrates to the coast of California, where they spend the entire winter from November to March.

In recent decades, monarch butterflies have declined by more than 90 percent. They are threatened by climate change, excessive pesticide use, and habitat loss in their breeding, migratory and wintering grounds. Their habitats include, among others, native nectar plants and milkweed, the only food source on which monarch butterfly larvae depend to begin their life cycle.

The National Wildlife Federation makes the following six recommendations in support of monarch butterfly conservation:

1. Include the monarch butterfly as a threatened species, under the Endangered Species Act.
2. Reduce or eliminate, the use of pesticides and herbicides that directly affect butterflies and their habitats, milkweed, nectar plants, and wildlife in general.
3. Create a monarch friendly garden, planting milkweed and native nectar plants for the survival of caterpillars and monarch adults.
4. Encourage local authorities to be part of the initiative, Mayors ‘ Monarch Pledge, the National Wildlife Federation’s program that supports monarch butterfly conservation. From 2015 to date, more than 1,200 cities in the United States, Mexico and Canada are part of this initiative.
5. Call on Congress to pass the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act and the Monarch Act of 2025.
6. Participate in citizen science activities.

You can read this blog in Spanish here.

En la primavera, las poblaciones oriental y occidental de las monarcas migran hacia el noreste y noroeste respectivamente, llegando hasta la frontera de Canadá con Estados Unidos. En otoño, ambas poblaciones migran a sus sitios de invernación. La población oriental, migra a las montañas altas y frías del centro de México y la población occidental migra a la costa de California, donde pasan todo el invierno de noviembre a marzo.

En las últimas décadas, las mariposas monarca han sufrido un declive de más del 90 por ciento. Están amenazadas por el cambio climático, el uso excesivo de pesticidas y la pérdida de su hábitat en sus zonas de reproducción, migración e invernación. Sus hábitats incluyen, entre otras, a las plantas nativas que proveen néctar y al algodoncillo, del género Asclepias, la única fuente de alimento de la que dependen las larvas de la monarca para completar su ciclo de vida.

Estas son seis recomendaciones de National Wildlife Federation para ayudar a salvar a las mariposas monarca:

1. Incluir a la mariposa monarca como una especie amenazada, bajo la Ley Federal de Especies en Peligro de Extinción. 
2. Reducir, o eliminar, el uso de pesticidas y herbicidas que afectan directamente a las mariposas y sus hábitats, al algodoncillo, a las plantas que proveen néctar y a la vida silvestre en general.
3. Crear jardines silvestres, sembrando algodoncillo y plantas nativas de néctar para la supervivencia de las orugas y los adultos de la monarca. 
4. Alentar a las autoridades locales a ser parte de la iniciativa trinacional, Mi Municipio con la Monarca, (Mayors’ Monarch Pledge), el programa de National Wildlife Federation que apoya la conservación de la mariposa monarca. Desde el 2015 hasta la fecha, más de 1,200 ciudades en Estados Unidos, México y Canadá son parte de esta iniciativa.
5. Pedirle al Congreso aprobar, el proyecto de ley de recuperación de la vida silvestre de Estados Unidos, Recovering America’s Wildlife Act, y el proyecto de ley de conservación y recuperación del hábitat de la mariposa monarca, Monarch Act de 2025.
6. Participar en actividades de ciencia ciudadana.

Puedes leer este blog en inglés aquí.