Pollinators are one of the cornerstones of our ecosystem, helping to preserve biodiversity by allowing the plants we love and depend on to reproduce.
From the most extravagant butterfly to the tiniest native bee, these creatures deserve to be supported and celebrated—and on April 25th, more than 200 volunteers joined TreePeople at Pollinator Palooza to do just that!
Our largest Earth Month event of the year, Pollinator Palooza kicked off with a resource fair where partners like the Sierra Club, the Surfrider Foundation, and SCV Water shared information about our local ecosystems and gave away resources like pollinator-friendly plants and gardening tools.
TreePeople also gave away a Xerces Society pollinator seed mix and 300 free milkweed plants, which residents can now plant all over Southern California to support our beloved—but threatened—western monarch butterfly population.
Monarchs and milkweed have co-evolved together for centuries, and milkweed is in fact the only plant that monarch caterpillars can eat, offering them special protection from predators as they grow. Unfortunately, these beloved and essential pollinators face a myriad of threats across their migratory range—from climate change to pesticides to habitat loss.
Right now, TreePeople is working on planting more than 6,000 native milkweed plants across the Angeles National Forest, in an effort to increase western monarch habitat. And at Pollinator Palooza, we continued that work, planting more than 300 new milkweed plants in a single day with the help of our volunteers!
At our Castaic Lake site, which we’ve been restoring for two years, we’re already seeing the impacts of this important work—we’ve spotted multiple monarch butterflies and caterpillars using the new milkweed plants already!
We want to give a heartfelt thank you to all of the volunteers who helped us support monarchs and other pollinators by participating in this planting and event. And if you didn’t make it to Pollinator Palooza, don’t worry—there are plenty of other upcoming opportunities to help us plant and care for our wilderness areas and our dynamic ecosystems here in SoCal.
Head to our volunteer calendar to sign up today!