Help our monarchs. Plant a milkweed

[hoodat]

Due to weather conditions in Mexico this year much of the Winter habitat of monarch butterflies was destroyed by heavy rains and mudslides. It is estimated that 40% of the overwintering monarchs were destroyed. It is crucial that monarchs returning North to breed find the milkweed plants necessary to build their number back up. If you have room in your garden or unused ground please plant it to milkweed to help these marvelous creatures survive.

 

[hoodat]

I planted some tropical milkweed yesterday (Thanks to Beavis for the seed) and I'm going to check my local nursery for a perennial milkweed. It has a short bloom season but it's supposedly a good host plant for the larvae.

 

[nittygrittydirtdigger]

I have lots of milkweed in the part of our property that is uncultivated. We've only seen a couple monarchs, tho, probably because we are not in their main area.

I used to live on the Calif Central Coast, where they stop along their migrations. It is an awesome and astonishing sight to see thousands of monarchs in a single tree.

 

[journey11]

My grandmother and I were just talking about this last night. She converted all of her flowerbeds to native wildflowers last year and was really thrilled with all the butterflies, particularly monarchs, that it drew. I have never seen a butterfly emerge from it's chrysalis before, but she got to see dozens of them go through their stages this summer.

I had found about 10 monarch catepillars eating on my black anise this year (which is funny, because I've had that anise for about 5 years now and have never seen them on it before). I watched them for a couple days but never saw where they went after that. I wonder where they decided to hang their pupa...

I've also seen them all over my parsley last summer. Now I really don't know where they could have gone from there. I would think something would have eaten them before they made it far enough to reach a tree or anything tall enough to hang from.

It's amazing that they can turn into a butterfly in only 10 days!

 

[hypnofrogstevie]

Oh man I bought enough seed to feed a monarch army. 130 butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) and 50+ scarlet milkweed

unfortunately the butterfly weed only has a 50% chance of germination.

 

[vfem]

If anyone has seed I have plenty of room to plant some here.

 

[beavis]

I still have seed........

 

[ninnymary]

Beavis,

Could I have 5 seeds to plant in our perenial garden? My preschoolers and I just love butterflies and hummingbirds!

Mary

 

[beavis]

Send me a PM with your address ninny, no problem...

 

[vfem]

I would also like a few.