Monarchs and Milkweed
Donate to keep the milkweed growing
Thanks to a generous, anonymous, donor, we have the opportunity of securing a matching donation of up to $5,000.
Over the last two years, SAMO Fund has
Grown 100,000 native milkweed plants
Engaged 18 diverse youth as employees and student interns to support project components (seed gathering, plant production, habitat enhancement, outreach, and distribution components)
Grown 3 different kinds of milkweed
Provided 5 native plant workshops
Provided 5 outreach events to educate the public on native milkweed and monarch butterflies
Planted 25,000 milkweed plants across 150-acre area at the nursery at Rancho Sierra Vista (RSV)
Donated 30,000 milkweed plants
With your support, we can continue to
Plant 25,000 milkweed plants across 150-acre area at RSV by end of April 2025
Draw up maps of planting sites at RSV
Donate 20,000 plants to communities, schools, and senior gardens
Reach out and develop an understanding of the community’s needs
Clean 10 pounds of harvested native milkweed seed
Provide this native milkweed and monarch symposium again next year
2024 Monarchs and Milkweed Symposium
Speaker Time stamps:
00:00:00 Antonio Sanchez (Rancho Sierra Vista/Satwiwa Nursery Manager) - introduction and moderator
00:13:00 Sara Cuadra-Vargas (Endangered Species Conservation Biologist and Monarch Overwintering Specialist from Xerces Society) - monarch overwintering, migration, population decline, population surveys
00:44:12 Kayli O'Hara (Milkweed Technician) - different milkweed species, native vs non-native
01:03:23 Greta Varien (Chief Deputy Agricultural Commissioner of Ventura County) - banning tropical milkweed in Ventura, enforcement policies
01:39:44 Antonio Sanchez - how to grow and care for native narrowleaf milkweed
02:18:25 Julia Samaniego (Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing Nursery) - cultural importance and ethnobotanical uses of milkweed
02:45:36 Aurora Anaya (Pollinator Garden enthusiast) - native plant-oriented yards for monarchs
03:12:30 Jimena Jaramillo (Milkweed Technician) - the Milkweed Project over the past 2 years and general SAMO Fund promo for volunteer events and free native plants
Thanks to the support of National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) and the generous donations of Monarch fans like you, SAMO Fund has been able to accomplish great things over the last 2 years and bring this special symposium to you
MISSION MONARCH:
RESTORING SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, ONE PLANT, ONE NEIGHBORHOOD AT A TIME
SEE OUR FREE UPCOMING MILKWEED GIVEAWAYS AROUND LA AND VENTURA COUNTY!
VOLUNTEER AT OUR NURSERY TO HELP GROW MILKWEED AND OTHER NATIVE PLANTS!
Search for Volunteer Events on our Outdoors Calendar
Sowing narrowleaf milkweed in a pot
Transplanting narrowleaf milkweed
Sowing narrowleaf mllkweed in the ground
BECOME A VOLUNTEER OR INTERN
Volunteers and interns are at the heart of all our programs. Whether it’s volunteering one day a year, joining us weekly for seed cleaning, or becoming a restoration intern, the plants and parks can use all the help you have to offer!
WHAT DOES A NATIVE PLANT VOLUNTEER DO?
Volunteers can help us with routine nursery tasks like seed cleaning, plant propagation and native plant potting up. Some volunteers prefer the solitude and technical aspects of seed cleaning, while others enjoy the group camaraderie of planting hundreds of white sage plants into larger containers. A few even get trained to help us with herbarium curation and data keeping. Which of these can you step in to help us with?
WHAT DOES A NATIVE PLANT INTERN DO?
Our interns are put through a unique hands-on training program touching most or all aspects of our native plant nursery and restoration programs. From basic mapping and GIS skills, seed collecting, plant propagation and field restoration, our goal is to introduce interns to a little California botany, native plant horticulture, and ecological restoration all at once.
Volunteering with the SAMOFund native plant nursery is powerful! It helps you use and gain skills in native plant identification, gardening and botany while helping us to grow local plants for restoration and public giveaways!
