My Milkweed Garden

[luna]

I love growing milkweed in my yard. That is what I have been working on the last couple of days... moving the milkweed garden.

Here is a quick picture from last year. It is a Lygasaeus kalmii on Asclepias syriaca or better known as Milkweed Bugs mating on Common Milkweed... Just a little insect porn. I have many better pictures of my milkweed zoo but this was really the only one that was already on flickr. Planting milkweed means I get to see all stages of many insects lifecycles; Milkweed bug, beetles, tussock moths and naturally, Monarchs too. I never have to leave the back yard once my patch of weeds gets growing.

I'm going back out to move the common milkweed and to plant white and pink swamp plus some orange butterfly weed. It's a little late but with the school year just ending this is the soonest I could get to it so late is better than never and they will come back next year.

 

[spydrhunter1]

Congratulations on your garden, I love seeing people use native plants which benefit native insects. When I plant I always look for plants which benefit the insects and hummingbirds.

 

[luna]

There was a time when almost everthing I planted had "weed" as part of it's name. Joe Pye Weed, New York Iron Weed so many beautiful weeds but that can be a problem... snake roots, thistles and stinging netles and all those wild things can really take over. It was a consant battle and my husband and the lawn mower won countless times against me. That is why twenty years in the same house and I am planting milkweed again!

I think we have reach an agreement now. I have my corner. This time will hopefully be the final destination for the milkweed garden. I see no more reasons for it to be moved.


Milkweed bug nymphs

 

[Louise E. Rothstein]

I have medicinal milkweeds. Had I not actually seen a man use their "milk" to
"shrink" poison ivy I would not have believed that my common milkweeds could do anything like that.

I intend to offer their seeds when they finish ripening.
They might breed true.

I may also obtain seeds from my vine milkweeds.
I do not know whether these have medicinal qualities.
But I HAVE known them to harbor caterpillars in such vivid orange,black and white that they looked like Halloween pipe cleaners.

The Halloween caterpillars are not Monarch larvae.

Monarch larvae produce Halloween BUTTERFLIES that prefer true milkweed.

Yours very truly,
Louise E. Rothstein
crystalfan2192@yahoo.com