May Monarchs and Signposts

As the 2025-26 academic year comes to a close, I made the rounds to visit our school garden partners. A strong theme for May was signposts marking monarch habitats.

Open House Signs at NVLA

Artist and Garden Educator at Napa Valley Language Academy designed a set of seven signs detailing the anatomy, life cycle, and migration, as well as the cultural, social, scientific, and spiritual significance of the monarch butterfly. These signs have been in the making for nearly a year. Different stakeholders provided feedback throughout the process. The NVLA school garden was teeming with families eager to visit and see the signs at Open House! We are so grateful to Napa Printing and Community Projects for helping bring these signs into fruition.

Willow Wing Stop Signs

At the final meeting of the Willow Elementary garden club, kiddos helped mount and install a set of interpretive signs for their their newly registered Monarch Waystation, the Willow Wing Stop. These signs inform visitors why this monarch habitat is planted with native plants. We purchased them from the Monarch Joint Venture Store with funding from a Lewis Cellars Community Grant.

Stone Bridge Plant ID Signs

At Napa RCD’s Climate Friendly Garden Tour, students led visitors around the native habitat garden where some of them were able to see their very first monarch caterpillar. Two larvae made appearances that day, though it was not the first monarch sighting of the spring for these garden students.

Bonus Signs!

The Monarch Education Project has now had a hand in planting five Monarch Waystations within ten square miles in south Napa. We have registered a total of nine sites with Monarch Watch. You can see a map of the sites here.