Watertown
Community Gardens

Thank you to our city manager, George Proakis, for signing on for a second year of the Mayors' Monarch Pledge!  And we cannot forget our many friends at City Hall, including

• Laurel Schwab, Senior Environmental Planner
• Katie Swan, Environmental Planner/Conservation Agent
• Bob DiRico, Parks/Cemetery Supervisor
• Gideon Schreiber, Assistant Director of Planning

Here are some of our favorite parts of the 2024 Action Item list!

• Launch or maintain a public communication effort to encourage residents to plant monarch gardens at their homes or in their neighborhoods. (If you have community members who speak a language other than English, we encourage you to also communicate in that language; Champion Pledges must communicate in that language.)
• Display educational signage at monarch gardens and pollinator habitat.
• Launch, expand, or continue an invasive species removal program that will support the re-establishment of native habitat for monarch butterflies and other pollinators.
• Initiate or support community science (or citizen science) efforts that help monitor monarch migration and health.
• Host or support a monarch neighborhood challenge to engage neighborhoods and homeowners' associations within the community to increase awareness, support community unity around a common mission, and/or create habitat for the monarch butterfly.
• Plant milkweed and pollinator-friendly native nectar plants in medians and public rights-of-way.
• Increase the percentage of native plants, shrubs and trees that must be used in city landscaping ordinances and encourage use of milkweed, where appropriate.

View the report from 2023 here