Gila Watershed Partnership

04/17/2026

Come on down and see us today and tomorrow!

04/16/2026

If you missed the opening weekend of the Gila Native Plants Nursery Spring Plant Sale, you missed some amazing plants!

Fortunately, we are bringing out some new items that weren’t in last week’s sale:

· Mopane Aloe – huge nontoxic aloe with medicinal purposes (not aloe vera) $30

· Quiver Tree – non-ingestible aloe (not aloe vera) $30

· Blue Palo Verde in 14” treepots $25

· Black Elderberry in 14” treepots $25

· Cottonwoods and mesquites in 14” treepots $25

· Organ Pipe Cactus (as found at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument) $30

Shop now at https://www.gwpaz.org/s/shop or come in person this Friday from 9 am to 3 pm or Saturday from 9 am to noon.

04/16/2026

Tomorrow! Join us for another volunteer planting event. Fun for all! RSVP with Kara at [email protected] today by 4 pm to reserve your spot for tomorrow.

04/11/2026

Come down to our plant sale this morning and see our beautiful Burgundy Bliss Desert Willows we have for sale!
They are just beginning to bloom and they are stunning!

We’re open today from 9-12. Hope to see you there!

04/09/2026

RSVP with Kara today by 5 pm if you're planning to attend our planting event tomorrow morning. [email protected]

04/07/2026

Come down this Friday and Saturday and check out our Spring Sale! Lots of beautiful native plants for your spring planting!
Or, just come down and walk through our oasis and be surrounded by the lovely smells and sights of our native plants.

04/06/2026

Send Kara an email if you're going to plant with us this Friday! [email protected]

Friday's are for planting this April! Join us as we do a final push to finish planting this season. RSVP to [email protected] to reserve a spot on your preferred day(s).

03/23/2026

Friday's are for planting this April! Join us as we do a final push to finish planting this season. RSVP to [email protected] to reserve a spot on your preferred day(s).

01/29/2026

Let's have another update on our Monarch caterpillars! Today, with the unintended help of THE Steve Plath, we released six adult caterpillars with more to come!

Last week we were chrysalis city, this week we've got butterflies emerging all over the place! It's an amazing process to behold. We had our last two caterpillars form their chrysalis today, check out the video below to see one wiggling into its chrysalis dress, its fascinating.

Before we release them, they spend some time in the enclosure where they can feed on sponges soaked in honey water to build up their strength and stamina. Thankfully, we've have a nice increase in daily temps making release of the butterflies safer.

When we first placed the caterpillars in the enclosure, we were hopeful that we would get 2-3 released. So far we've released 7 total with more to be released tomorrow and several more still developing in their chrysalis. It's been a grand journey and we're both proud and happy to have had a hand in assisting this incredible endangered species survive.

01/16/2026

It is chrysalis city here in the greenhouse. We have approximately 20 chrysalis at the moment.

We’ve had some loss along the way, as is to be expected in this situation. And I wouldn’t be surprised if only a small portion of these chrysalis survive. The odds have always been against us.
However, we have a couple of the chrysalis that look really good and healthy. We also still have caterpillars happily feeding on milkweed.

If we get even just a few of the monarchs to emerge and fly away, we’ll count it a conservation win!

01/09/2026

How about an update on our Monarch caterpillar brood this morning?

We have our first chrysalis!! It formed it's chrysalis on a loose piece of milkweed so it was moved into a smaller terrarium to protect it from falling or possibly being predated on by other caterpillars.

We also have a couple who are in the classic J shaped preparing for their chrysalis and a few more that are forming their silk buttons. The silk buttons are a tightly bound wad of silk that the caterpillar then latch onto with their cremaster which is a spiny hook at it's rear end. This keeps them safe and snug while they pupate.

The remaining caterpillars are voracious eaters and are eating us out of milkweed at an incredible pace. Jennifer, our nursery manager, will be scouring surrounding neighborhoods looking for milkweed to keep feeding them. Please feel free to reach out if you have any that you'd like to donate!

01/07/2026

The conservation and restoration of our beautiful natural world can take many forms. Sometimes, opportunities to help nature present themselves in unexpected ways, and this is one of them.

On Monday, our nursery manager found several Monarch caterpillars in a naturally occurring bundle of milkweed in our lower shade house. Further searching located caterpillars in different locations around the shade house, as well as a few found at the seed orchard belonging to the Desert Seed Resource Center.

It is very late in the year to have active caterpillars, but our unseasonably warm weather throughout December likely attracted female Monarchs to our butterfly waystation. The resulting hatchlings are now at risk due to the abrupt change in weather, making immediate action necessary.

Over the last two days, we've collected 42 (yes, you read that right, 42!) caterpillars in varying stages of growth, or instars. Some of them are so small as to be newly hatched, and some are near pupation. We reached out to Butterfly Wonderland and they gave us some great information regarding how best to help these caterpillars. To that end, they've been placed in a mesh butterfly enclosure inside the greenhouse to keep them warm, provided with milkweed to eat, and will be monitored daily.

Once they emerge from their chrysalis, they can be released as long as the temperature is above 55*. Thankfully, most days in Arizona are suitable for releasing butterflies even throughout the winter. Monarchs are an endangered species according to the IUCN, and we felt it was important to do what we could to save what we could. Your continued support of Gila Watershed Partnership is what makes this possible and we appreciate your unceasing commitment. Follow our ongoing Monarch journey to stay connected and inspired!