No. 1 · The Austin Edition
No kit. No mail-order caterpillars. The native plants monarchs look for, when to plant them, and what to do when the first caterpillar turns up.
An illustrated guide and a printable journal for your child.
This edition covers Travis, Williamson, Hays, Bastrop and Caldwell counties.
Plate I
Egg, caterpillar, chrysalis and butterfly, all on antelope horns milkweed, the way Maria Sibylla Merian composed her plates in 1705. The guide is illustrated like this throughout: accurate enough to tell a small caterpillar from a big one, and lovely enough to leave open on the table.
Can you find the egg on a curled leaf tip, the big caterpillar eating, the one hanging in a J, the green chrysalis, the new butterfly drying its wings, and the mother feeding? The egg is in the circle too, much bigger than life.
Draft, awaiting expert review. Every plate that identifies a living thing is reviewed by a lepidopterist or a horticulturist before the guide ships.
Every spring and fall, monarchs cross Texas on the way between Mexico and the north. Which visit your yard is ready for decides whether you see eggs and caterpillars, or butterflies stopping to feed.
Where the monarchs are right nowIn spring they lay eggs here. In fall most only pass through.
About mid-March to mid-April
Monarchs flying north from their winter forests in Mexico stop on Texas milkweed to lay their eggs, and then they die. Their children carry on north. This is the visit the guide is built around, and the one your milkweed has to be ready for.
Texas Parks and Wildlife: “Seeking emerging milkweeds, they move through Texas laying eggs before dying.” Eggs were recorded at Driftwood, one county over, on 12 March 2025 (Journey North).
Late September to early November
Most fall monarchs are on their way to Mexico and aren’t laying eggs, though a smaller wave of caterpillars does turn up in fall. What the travelers need from your yard is flowers to feed on for the long flight. The busiest three weeks are usually mid-October to early November.
Texas Parks and Wildlife for the passage; Monarch Joint Venture on why most fall monarchs don’t breed; Scott and colleagues (2022) on fall breeding in north Texas; the busiest weeks from iNaturalist sightings in Travis County, 2023 to 2025, which also reflect when people are out looking.
When do monarchs come to Austin? The calendar, with its sources
Here is what your family will see, and roughly when. The day counts are for warm weather; in a cool spring, each stage can take longer.
Monarch egg, enlarged1.2 mm tall, 0.9 mm wide
Stage 1 · about days 1 to 4
She usually lays one egg at a time, often on the underside of a leaf near the top of the plant. Each egg is about the size of a pinhead. Hand the kids a magnifying glass, turn the leaves over together, and let them be the ones to find it.
Hatches in 3 to 5 days, depending on the temperature. Monarch Joint Venture.
Stage 2 · about days 4 to 16
Its first meal is its own eggshell. After that it eats milkweed, only milkweed, and it grows so fast it splits its skin and sheds it four times. Each size in between is called an instar.
Lengths and days for each instar: Monarch Joint Venture.
Five sizes of one caterpillar
Drawn to scale. Slide to grow it.
Most of what the guide covers happens in this stage: how much milkweed a few caterpillars eat, what to do if the plant runs out, and the pests to watch for.
Chrysalis8 to 15 days
Stage 3 · about days 16 to 27
A full-grown caterpillar often leaves the milkweed and travels a surprising way to find somewhere to hang: a fence rail, the window trim, the underside of a patio chair. It spins a silk pad, hangs upside down in the shape of a J, and sheds its skin one last time. Underneath is a bright green chrysalis.
Near the end, the wings show through: black, orange and white, folded up inside. That’s the day to keep the kids close.
Monarch Joint Venture.
Stage 4 · about day 27, give or take a week
A new butterfly pumps its crumpled wings open, then needs several hours to dry before it can fly. Get the camera ready. When it’s ready, it goes, and a child who has checked on it every day for a month gets to watch.
Monarch Joint Venture.
Monarch caterpillars eat only milkweed, and the butterflies need flowers. An Austin yard needs both. It also needs the right kinds: the milkweed most nurseries stock is the one to skip.
Native to central Texas
Asclepias asperula
Host plantTexas Parks and Wildlife describes this milkweed and green milkweed dividing the state between them. Grow both.
Full sun, dry rocky soil. TPWD, Wildflower Center
Asclepias viridis
Host plantThe other half of the pair. The Xerces Society’s regional guide lists it plainly: “Monarch caterpillar host plant.”
Full sun, low water. Xerces, NPSOT
Asclepias oenotheroides
Host plantThe one hardly anyone plants. The Wildflower Center calls it “a well-documented larval host for Monarch butterflies,” and in Texas Parks and Wildlife’s table it blooms the longest of the three.
Full sun, dry soil. Its sap irritates skin, so wash hands after. Wildflower Center, TPWD
What about butterfly weed? Asclepias tuberosa is a host plant, and pretty, but the Native Plant Society of Texas calls it “a limited monarch host plant,” and it blooms from May, after the spring monarchs have moved on. Fine for summer color; not your spring plant.
One for the spring visit, three for the fall
Glandularia bipinnatifida
Spring nectarBlooms from March, right when the egg-layers arrive, and it’s on the Xerces list of plants monarchs use.
Wildflower Center, Xerces
Conoclinium greggii
Fall nectarXerces calls it a “magnet for monarchs and queens,” and it handles an Austin summer.
Xerces, NPSOT
Verbesina virginica
Fall nectarThe answer for a shady yard. It blooms white from July into December.
Part shade to shade. Wildflower Center, Xerces
Symphyotrichum oblongifolium
Fall nectarBlooms September through November, right through the fall passage.
Sun to part shade, low water. Wildflower Center, Xerces
It’s the milkweed nurseries stock most (Monarch Joint Venture), and it can stay green through a mild winter. Xerces says that lets monarchs keep breeding “throughout the winter rather than going into diapause,” and recommends native milkweeds instead.
Plant plates are drafts awaiting a horticulturist’s review. Best milkweed for Austin, with two sources for each · Where to buy in Austin
Nine short sections, written for Austin and illustrated throughout, plus a journal your child fills in as it happens.
From the winter forests of Michoacán straight to your yard, and the generations that carry on north.
Where Austin sits on the monarch flyway.
The spring visit that brings eggs, and the fall visit that needs flowers.
Milkweeds and nectar plants for Austin, each backed by two sources.
Sun, size and spacing, for whatever space you have.
What to plant each month, with the source of every date printed beside it.
Every stage, drawn to be recognized.
Tachinid flies, the OE parasite, tropical milkweed and sprayed nursery plants.
How the winter forests were found in 1975, and how families count monarchs today.
Safe handling for kids: what little hands can hold, what stays look-only, and Austin's stinging caterpillars.
A page for each day, for your child to fill in, and a place to count every monarch you let go.
My monarch journalAustin Edition
Circle one: eggcaterpillarchrysalisbutterfly
Monarchs we let go this year
A page from the printable journalOne for each day, from the first egg to the last one you let go
The guide's plates are drawn to be pored over together: what's inside a chrysalis, why the caterpillar has two kinds of legs, how milkweed pollen hitches a ride. Six of them are free to look through.
$17One time.
Buying for a grandchild? It makes a lovely gift, and something to do together next spring.
Full refund within 30 days, for any reason, by email. Refund policy · A PDF, with the printable journal included.
No. The Native Plant Society of Texas says fall is “the best time for planting milkweed seeds.” In a good year the sprouts are up by March: Journey North has a record of “9 eggs on small antelope horn milkweed sprouts” at Glen Rose, Texas, on 17 March 2025. And the fall monarchs passing through now still need flowers.
Nobody can promise that, and we won’t. What the guide gives you is the right plants, in the right place, at the right time, which is everything that’s in your control.
No. Monarch Watch, which certifies monarch habitats, sets no minimum size. The guide shows you how to lay out whatever space you have.
The best-selling kits raise painted lady butterflies indoors. This is about wild monarchs: you plant native milkweed, and if a monarch finds it, she lays her eggs there.
Yes, gently. Monarch caterpillars don’t sting. Monarch Watch says they “can be handled safely with fingers after they are about three to four days old, but it is best to handle them as little as possible until they are over an inch long,” and never while molting. Our house rule is to let it walk onto a finger rather than pulling it off, and to leave it alone while it’s still or hanging in a J. A chrysalis is for looking only. A new butterfly needs a day before small fingers.
Two real cautions. Milkweed sap in the eyes can injure them, so wash hands with soap and water, and keep the plant out of little mouths. And the asp caterpillar, which turns up on oaks and other shade trees around Austin homes, looks soft but stings badly. The guide’s free Gentle Hands pages cover all of it, with a look, don’t touch plate and what to do if someone is stung.
This edition is written for Austin: its plants, its soil and its two monarch windows. Editions for other cities along the flyway are on the way.
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department; Monarch Joint Venture; Journey North; Monarch Watch; iNaturalist observations for Travis County, 2023 to 2025.
Monarch Joint Venture: stage lengths, sizes and days.
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center; Native Plant Society of Texas; the Xerces Society; Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, Travis County.
Hometown Field Guides is not affiliated with any of these organizations. The photo-style pictures on this page are generated images, not photographs, and the illustrations are drafts awaiting expert review. The full source list · How we make an edition
