Girlfriend…your fast, informative,direct and know your milkweed facts… I now have time and space for MW garden, and I’ll probably subscribe after checking out some more of your videos… you’re good…
I started adding milkweed to my yard a few years ago. I have not found that they require flowering for the mama to show up. This is the first year I will not be planting more milkweed. I have 6 pots and a raised planter with 7. Here in Tucson our winters have not done damage to them so I trim them back about February so they can really get thick and healthy. At the peak of the summer last year we had 50 pupae hanging under the trim around the back and side of house. Some I’d come across in other assorted odd locations. At the same time we had quite a few cats in various stages of growth from really teeny to almost ready to move on. There were so many butterflies that when I’d water the flowers I have that they love for food, I would sometimes feel them fly by my hair. Loved it. We have one monarch now who is beginning to lay eggs. We had a few all winter and then none for about a month before this little girl showed up. Really looking forward to a new season. We do get the queens also. Several last year for the first time. We had a beautiful blue butterfly last year also. Had never seen one around here before. Hope we see more.
Yup! Flowers aren't needed for the female Monarchs to lay eggs on the milkweed. They are attracted to healthy milkweed flowering or not. (We have more eggs on milkweed without flowers than with!)
@ Wild Floridian I'm in central Florida. I've been raising monarch butterflies since 2017. I've raised over 3,090 caterpillars. Not all have made it to the butterfly stage. I'd guess 85%. I have indoors and outdoor enclosures to raise them in. It's so exciting when a new butterfly comes into the world. I've spent a lot of money buying plants for them to munch down to stems. I enjoyed your video and subscribed. I'm looking forward to your next video. Thanks for caring for the monarch population. Since you are in Florida, have you seen any swallowtail butterflies yet? They should have been in my area a month ago but they aren't. I raise them also.🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋
If you're lucky like I am, your milkweed is perennial. We have some that started showing up (volunteer) a few years ago and has now expanded to fill ~5,000-7,000 square feet in our field. It is going crazy and I love it.
Also a heads up: A lot of milkweed sold a box stores like lowes or home depot are treated with pesticides! Poor guys will start throwing up green and die. Its a good idea to grow them from seed or a local grower where you can verify pesticide use!
It's the truth! My hungry caterpillars ate through all the milkweed we had oh hand they we had grown from seed but there was so many babies and I had to run and buy some six plants and have them feast. Yet little did I realize the plants I had acquired for the little babies would be their last and had given them all black death. Made them all black and sucked them all up and made them shit their guts out. Nothing I could have done after they had been poisoned. There was so many and they were so big and more babies on the way yet.... All dead now.
Yea🙌 another helpful video for my redo! For the next few weeks we are doing the deconstruction stage, removing a couple of dying trees, removing overgrown non-native plants and building a few structures (raised beds and a couple of trellis) at night I'm drawing up a plan...and redrawing...and redrawing...🤣🤣(every time I wad up another piece of paper, I hear him chuckling to himself😝)
Hi! 👋 I love how your vid came up in my recommends! I just created a video on this subject as well and I haven’t me tioned this before because I only just noticed this year, but…I plant asclopeia tuberosa (common milkweed) in my butterfly garden out front. Well, I live in the country and I do tons of wildflower research over on my channel and I notice milkweed growing ALL along the roadsides. Only when I check, there are very few monarch eggs/caterpillars on those plants. Back home in my personal garden, I have several other flowing plants growing for momma monarchs and my little milkweeds are literally LOADED w/caterpillars!! So I think the moral is flowers attract momma. Momma eats, THEN she lays her eggs on my milkweed smorgasbored. Its so intereresting to watch them cycle. The caterpillars crawl @ 5 meters away from my garden when full and start their next phase.
Oh wow Yes I have tropical milkweed I didn't know there was a difference I saw caterpillars on it yesterday I may cut back some then replace it slowly with native milkweeds Thank you
Three things about keeping milkweeds. It's important to have natives blooming at all times of year to attract monarchs. They don't just need host plants to lay eggs on. Also some male monarchs, if you have a native prairie will stick around for two to three months in the summer and never leave the yard. They are happy and just waiting for females to mate with as they pass by on the way north. Lastly, monarchs need frequent fueling stops on the way to Mexico. So mack sure you have many species of goldenrods, tall boneset and asters for them to gather nectar. I have sporadic days in September when I get 20-120 monarchs at once nectarine. It's just magical for only having about 3/4 of an acre of native prairie surrounded by farmfields
I hope everyone remembers that the 5 basic types of milkweed is for FLORIDA. Here in Southern California our basic 5 native milkweed is completely different. :)
@@kimmmac5642 There are 20 native types of milkweed to Florida. The few you can usually pick up from native nurseries are swamp milkweed, butterflyweed, aquatic milkweed, whorled milkweed and Pineland milkweed.
Narrowleaf, Woollypod, California, Desert, and Showy Milkweed are all native to CA. Narrowleaf is very widespread through CA and probably the easiest to find and grow. It also easily sprouts from seed. California Milkweed is beautiful but is difficult to sprout from seed. Tropical Milkweed and Butterfly Weed are not native to CA so planting them here is kinda controversial, but it's a really complex topic.
Is it possible to over water common milkweed? I have big pots in my back yard and I was watering them daily, then cut it back to every few days, and a lot of them wilted and died. I have them in my front flower garden and some wilted like this while others look healthy. My other thought was that they were planted too thick with a few inches between each plant.
Check out Sweet Bay in Ellenton and I think there is another place Sarasota. But I’m highly confident that sweet bay would carry it. They have some weird hours so you may want to pop out at lunch one day
I’m wondering how successful mudball planting would be for distributing milkweed seeds in wild and riparian areas around my rural area? I was thinking to throw out in weedy/natural areas and swamps during the fall and early spring.
When I was a kid I lived in Boulder County,just east of “haystack mountain and north of IBM. There was a huge,seasonally wet area of a large pond, “Dodd” Lake, that I think was all milkweeds. I’m not sure if it was common or swamp milkweed,this was a long time ago but there were always so many butterflies and caterpillars on them. I wonder if any of it is still there?
I have had monarch Caterpillars twice now but something keeps getting them.. some get pretty big. Theire there one day and gone the next. Do you have any ideas. I have two milkweed plants in pots. The Caterpillars eat the leaves and they grow back pretty fast.
I live in Pensacola FL and started a butterfly garden last year. I have milkweed that I got from Lowes last year with yellow, orange and red flowers. They attracted many monarchs and I got a lot of caterpillars. The milkweed is regrowing but I want to add other native varieties. What do you recommend for my area? And I just found your channel and love it!
It sounds like you got the non-native milkweed. It's recommended that you don't plan the non-native ones because they can harbor parasites that harm monarch butterflies. Also the non-native varieties don't always die back in winter which can encourage monarchs to overwinter instead of migrating. This can further harm monarchs. You can google your state and native milkweeds and should find a bunch of different options. In Florida we have more than 20 native milkweed species.
@@Eryalb Thank you for the info! Wish our Lowes didn’t sell this non-native variety. I did cut my milkweed back over the winter and they are regrowing. I will look to find native milkweed for Florida and a nursery that sells them. It’s a learning process for sure.
Jamie! You are so lucky! In Florida we have 20 native species... the easiest to find are butterfly weed and swamp milkweed. But some native nurseries may have the vining milkweed and whorl milkweed and aquatic milkweed. Swamp milkweed for Florida is a paler pink then other states. I hope you can find a nursery near you! Also you can purchase seeds from sellers on line... I believe the Florida Wildflower Association sells them online.
Showy and narrowleaf are native to California...have several growing in pots and around early october we will transplant them along the Central Coast near Santa Barbara
Hey kid, I'm confused. I'm in Baker County, Zone 8b (now 9a with the recent zone change). Which plant is best for our area and would it be a perennial for us? I enjoy your channel. thanks.
I have a question for those who might’ve had the same thing happened. I had a caterpillar monarch go into Criscillis but was like half the size of the normal regular monarch chrysalis. This is not a queen she hatched and I helped with the wings because she felt the first minute of coming out of the chrysalis and I had her on my finger so her wings could go down I held her for a half an hour then transferred her into a nice mesh habitat I have. The question I have is her wings look fine and she slaps him up and down I just don’t know if her strength will be as good as a normal size monarch because she is a little smaller. Instead of releasing her the same day I’m waiting for the next morning to make sure she has really good strength in her wings. The question is has anybody else had a situation like this The chrysalis was half the size. She had no trouble getting her wings to be normal as far as her size wind we will this cause a problem for her?
It’s 100% normal for milk weed to get aphids. You really don’t need to do anything about it. Natural predators like ladybugs will be attracted to the plants and start to reduce the amount of a fits plus once the caterpillars eat a bunch of leaves it pushes them away too. I have planted three or four species of milkweed… I have not noticed any getting less aphids than the other.
I came here hoping to hear the genus name without leaving youtube.. But I only heard the common name. Edit: It's Asclepias, in Apocynaceae, formerly Asclepiadaceae.
Sadly, #butterfly hosting is not a good idea for me Because #caterpillars will eat down what I plant Especially a local vegetable called #callaloo and also hot peppers and sweet peppers 🇯🇲🇯🇲🇯🇲
Monarchs only eat milkweed. If you put them in your yard far away from your veg. They usually leave them alone. It has worked for me. Everything in this world needs help to survive. Not being mean. Just trying to help the butterfly's.
lol happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to milkweed happy birthday to you.
Girlfriend…your fast, informative,direct and know your milkweed facts… I now have time and space for MW garden, and I’ll probably subscribe after checking out some more of your videos… you’re good…
I started adding milkweed to my yard a few years ago. I have not found that they require flowering for the mama to show up. This is the first year I will not be planting more milkweed. I have 6 pots and a raised planter with 7. Here in Tucson our winters have not done damage to them so I trim them back about February so they can really get thick and healthy. At the peak of the summer last year we had 50 pupae hanging under the trim around the back and side of house. Some I’d come across in other assorted odd locations. At the same time we had quite a few cats in various stages of growth from really teeny to almost ready to move on. There were so many butterflies that when I’d water the flowers I have that they love for food, I would sometimes feel them fly by my hair. Loved it. We have one monarch now who is beginning to lay eggs. We had a few all winter and then none for about a month before this little girl showed up. Really looking forward to a new season. We do get the queens also. Several last year for the first time. We had a beautiful blue butterfly last year also. Had never seen one around here before. Hope we see more.
Yup! Flowers aren't needed for the female Monarchs to lay eggs on the milkweed. They are attracted to healthy milkweed flowering or not. (We have more eggs on milkweed without flowers than with!)
@ Wild Floridian
I'm in central Florida. I've been raising monarch butterflies since 2017. I've raised over 3,090 caterpillars. Not all have made it to the butterfly stage. I'd guess 85%. I have indoors and outdoor enclosures to raise them in. It's so exciting when a new butterfly comes into the world. I've spent a lot of money buying plants for them to munch down to stems. I enjoyed your video and subscribed. I'm looking forward to your next video. Thanks for caring for the monarch population. Since you are in Florida, have you seen any swallowtail butterflies yet? They should have been in my area a month ago but they aren't. I raise them also.🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋
Well done Shirley!
@@StanleyZen Thanks 🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋
Thank you so much for raising those caterpillars and butterflies. You’re a hero to them. 🦸♀️
If you're lucky like I am, your milkweed is perennial. We have some that started showing up (volunteer) a few years ago and has now expanded to fill ~5,000-7,000 square feet in our field. It is going crazy and I love it.
Thank you for helping me to turn my backyard into a butterfly Oasis here in Las Cruces New Mexico
🥰
Also a heads up: A lot of milkweed sold a box stores like lowes or home depot are treated with pesticides! Poor guys will start throwing up green and die. Its a good idea to grow them from seed or a local grower where you can verify pesticide use!
ugh! Should I assume this treatment is true of any/all plants sold at Lowes or HD? I want as little pesticides/herbicides in my yard as possible. :(
It's the truth! My hungry caterpillars ate through all the milkweed we had oh hand they we had grown from seed but there was so many babies and I had to run and buy some six plants and have them feast. Yet little did I realize the plants I had acquired for the little babies would be their last and had given them all black death. Made them all black and sucked them all up and made them shit their guts out. Nothing I could have done after they had been poisoned. There was so many and they were so big and more babies on the way yet.... All dead now.
Ridiculous… if someone is buying milkweed is very likely bc the person wants to help the butterfly…
@@Katy809RD I know right?!?
Sooo, milkweed is perennial! I didn't realize that. Thanks!!
Yes it is! Some will still act like annuals and die back... but look for them once the warmth returns! 😄
You are an awesome milkweed teacher!!!🥳🥳🥳
Thank you ☺️
Yea🙌 another helpful video for my redo! For the next few weeks we are doing the deconstruction stage, removing a couple of dying trees, removing overgrown non-native plants and building a few structures (raised beds and a couple of trellis) at night I'm drawing up a plan...and redrawing...and redrawing...🤣🤣(every time I wad up another piece of paper, I hear him chuckling to himself😝)
😂🤣😂 You go Gidget! I can't wait to hear how this amazing garden goes!
Hi! 👋 I love how your vid came up in my recommends! I just created a video on this subject as well and I haven’t me tioned this before because I only just noticed this year, but…I plant asclopeia tuberosa (common milkweed) in my butterfly garden out front. Well, I live in the country and I do tons of wildflower research over on my channel and I notice milkweed growing ALL along the roadsides. Only when I check, there are very few monarch eggs/caterpillars on those plants. Back home in my personal garden, I have several other flowing plants growing for momma monarchs and my little milkweeds are literally LOADED w/caterpillars!! So I think the moral is flowers attract momma. Momma eats, THEN she lays her eggs on my milkweed smorgasbored. Its so intereresting to watch them cycle. The caterpillars crawl @ 5 meters away from my garden when full and start their next phase.
Oh wow
Yes I have tropical milkweed I didn't know there was a difference
I saw caterpillars on it yesterday
I may cut back some then replace it slowly with native milkweeds
Thank you
Three things about keeping milkweeds. It's important to have natives blooming at all times of year to attract monarchs. They don't just need host plants to lay eggs on. Also some male monarchs, if you have a native prairie will stick around for two to three months in the summer and never leave the yard. They are happy and just waiting for females to mate with as they pass by on the way north. Lastly, monarchs need frequent fueling stops on the way to Mexico. So mack sure you have many species of goldenrods, tall boneset and asters for them to gather nectar. I have sporadic days in September when I get 20-120 monarchs at once nectarine. It's just magical for only having about 3/4 of an acre of native prairie surrounded by farmfields
I hope everyone remembers that the 5 basic types of milkweed is for FLORIDA. Here in Southern California our basic 5 native milkweed is completely different. :)
Actually these are the big 5 for the US. 3 of those do not exist in Florida. What is the big 5 for California? 😉
@@WildFloridian Which two are okay to have in Florida? I'm assuming swamp milkweed is one... ;)
@@kimmmac5642 There are 20 native types of milkweed to Florida. The few you can usually pick up from native nurseries are swamp milkweed, butterflyweed, aquatic milkweed, whorled milkweed and Pineland milkweed.
Narrowleaf, Woollypod, California, Desert, and Showy Milkweed are all native to CA. Narrowleaf is very widespread through CA and probably the easiest to find and grow. It also easily sprouts from seed. California Milkweed is beautiful but is difficult to sprout from seed. Tropical Milkweed and Butterfly Weed are not native to CA so planting them here is kinda controversial, but it's a really complex topic.
Great video! We have lots of common milkweed here in IN.
Very cool! 😄
Is it possible to over water common milkweed? I have big pots in my back yard and I was watering them daily, then cut it back to every few days, and a lot of them wilted and died. I have them in my front flower garden and some wilted like this while others look healthy.
My other thought was that they were planted too thick with a few inches between each plant.
Hi from Tampa Bay! Thank you for this video! Super helpful crash course!!! 🦋
Yay! I'm so glad Sassy Cat 🐱
I’m a new follower and your amazing ❤ love how informative this video is ❤
I need to get more swamp milkweed but I am dreading the drive up to Red Wagon or Wilcox
Check out Sweet Bay in Ellenton and I think there is another place Sarasota. But I’m highly confident that sweet bay would carry it. They have some weird hours so you may want to pop out at lunch one day
I’ve started milkweed from seed this year! I’m in Michigan! Nice video 👩🏻🌾
I’m wondering how successful mudball planting would be for distributing milkweed seeds in wild and riparian areas around my rural area? I was thinking to throw out in weedy/natural areas and swamps during the fall and early spring.
When I was a kid I lived in Boulder County,just east of “haystack mountain and north of IBM. There was a huge,seasonally wet area of a large pond, “Dodd” Lake, that I think was all milkweeds. I’m not sure if it was common or swamp milkweed,this was a long time ago but there were always so many butterflies and caterpillars on them. I wonder if any of it is still there?
Green Thumb ❤
👍Thank you for the knowledge
can i plant milkweed seeds in autumn when i plant my other wildflower seeds?
I have had monarch Caterpillars twice now but something keeps getting them.. some get pretty big. Theire there one day and gone the next. Do you have any ideas. I have two milkweed plants in pots. The Caterpillars eat the leaves and they grow back pretty fast.
I am in the Florida panhandle and live next to wetlands. Where can i find swamp or aquatic milkweed to plant?
I live in Pensacola FL and started a butterfly garden last year. I have milkweed that I got from Lowes last year with yellow, orange and red flowers. They attracted many monarchs and I got a lot of caterpillars. The milkweed is regrowing but I want to add other native varieties. What do you recommend for my area? And I just found your channel and love it!
It sounds like you got the non-native milkweed. It's recommended that you don't plan the non-native ones because they can harbor parasites that harm monarch butterflies. Also the non-native varieties don't always die back in winter which can encourage monarchs to overwinter instead of migrating. This can further harm monarchs. You can google your state and native milkweeds and should find a bunch of different options. In Florida we have more than 20 native milkweed species.
@@Eryalb Thank you for the info! Wish our Lowes didn’t sell this non-native variety. I did cut my milkweed back over the winter and they are regrowing. I will look to find native milkweed for Florida and a nursery that sells them. It’s a learning process for sure.
Jamie! You are so lucky! In Florida we have 20 native species... the easiest to find are butterfly weed and swamp milkweed. But some native nurseries may have the vining milkweed and whorl milkweed and aquatic milkweed. Swamp milkweed for Florida is a paler pink then other states. I hope you can find a nursery near you! Also you can purchase seeds from sellers on line... I believe the Florida Wildflower Association sells them online.
@@WildFloridian This is so helpful! Thank you!
A quick crash course? I was hoping for a slow crash course.
Was not prepared for the caterpillars to eat my Mexican milkweed down to sticks, but 2 weeks later and the leaves are coming back
What is the link to identifying common milkweeds? 3 of the 4 suggested links show up at the end of the video, but #4 is no there. Thanks!
Showy and narrowleaf are native to California...have several growing in pots and around early october we will transplant them along the Central Coast near Santa Barbara
Great info!! Thank you.
Hey kid, I'm confused. I'm in Baker County, Zone 8b (now 9a with the recent zone change). Which plant is best for our area and would it be a perennial for us? I enjoy your channel. thanks.
Is milkweed supposed to get eaten up and eventually die? I had a few plants in my front garden but it got eaten up.
I'm in middle Georgia. Is Milkweed native to central Georgia? I haven't seen it in garden centers here.
Awesome video! Ty!
should i cut off top of plant ?
I have a question for those who might’ve had the same thing happened. I had a caterpillar monarch go into Criscillis but was like half the size of the normal regular monarch chrysalis. This is not a queen she hatched and I helped with the wings because she felt the first minute of coming out of the chrysalis and I had her on my finger so her wings could go down I held her for a half an hour then transferred her into a nice mesh habitat I have. The question I have is her wings look fine and she slaps him up and down I just don’t know if her strength will be as good as a normal size monarch because she is a little smaller. Instead of releasing her the same day I’m waiting for the next morning to make sure she has really good strength in her wings. The question is has anybody else had a situation like this The chrysalis was half the size. She had no trouble getting her wings to be normal as far as her size wind we will this cause a problem for her?
I am living nearby Dubai, which is the best type of milkweed that stands our very hot weather😅
My milkweeds get infested with aphids all the time… how do you manage those? Are there any species that get less infestation?
It’s 100% normal for milk weed to get aphids. You really don’t need to do anything about it. Natural predators like ladybugs will be attracted to the plants and start to reduce the amount of a fits plus once the caterpillars eat a bunch of leaves it pushes them away too. I have planted three or four species of milkweed… I have not noticed any getting less aphids than the other.
Nice
❤️
Milk w EE eedwe just got to go
Second🥈!
🏆 good work Nick!
Here.
☺️ Yay Nancy!
There’s even a desert milkweed that almost looks like a succulent.
Milkweed
👍🦋💗💫🌏🙏
🥰
Thanks for sharing 🎬🦋👍💫🌏🙏
I came here hoping to hear the genus name without leaving youtube.. But I only heard the common name.
Edit: It's Asclepias, in Apocynaceae, formerly Asclepiadaceae.
Sorry I say the scientific name on the specific species videos.
Sadly, #butterfly hosting is not a good idea for me
Because #caterpillars will eat down what I plant
Especially a local vegetable called #callaloo and also hot peppers and sweet peppers
🇯🇲🇯🇲🇯🇲
Monarchs only eat milkweed. If you put them in your yard far away from your veg. They usually leave them alone. It has worked for me. Everything in this world needs help to survive. Not being mean. Just trying to help the butterfly's.
@@paulinehignett6557 My yard space is small not enough to host butterflies and grow vegetables
😊😊
We all have to prioritize what we use our space for 😄 I wish we could do it all! But those peppers sound awesome. Happy Growing!
She is only talking about how to attract the monarch butterfly to your garden. They only lay their eggs on milkweed not vegetables .
@@noraalvarado8178
I wish the butterflies in my neck of the woods didn't lay their eggs on vegetables
Not true! Monarch only eggs on milkweed plants. I’ve had monarch lay eggs on my damn tomato plant and ate everything
I know what milk is weed is milkweed
:)
You didn't say when you plant the milkweed. You said, 2 months before they come in.
Boring comments, long and useless🥸
thanks, good video - Kentucky
Thankyou awesome I will look into this as I live in qld 🇦🇺 🪃 and I really want to succeed. You r awesome. Thankyou