Hey Cathy, it button20 I am sending you a message:)

I've sent you an email.

So far I've had 3 people email me saying they're interested in getting plants. Those people are guaranteed to receive plants when I dig them out because I'm confident that there are enough out there for that many. As I said, it's hard for me to tell how many people I'll be able to send to, so if you're interested, I can keep your name on a list and let you know as I send plants out and can get a better idea how many people I can supply with plants. I probably won't have enough for more than one or two more people, but I can keep your names on a list and I'll go in the order that I receive them. Just because I have your name on a list doesn't necessarily mean that I'll be able to send you plants. I hope I have enough for the people who are interested.
Cathy

I would like to try some if you have any left or put me on the list. Thanks.

Cathy, Swamp Milkweed has deep taproots. Are these very young plants? I'm afraid you might have problems digging deep enough to recover the taproot in tact. Do you know something I don't about the roots of Asclepias incarnata? Just wondering......

Susan

"As I said, it's hard for me to tell how many people I'll be able to send to, so if you're interested, I can keep your name on a list and let you know as I send plants out and can get a better idea how many people I can supply with plants. I probably won't have enough for more than one or two more people, but I can keep your names on a list and I'll go in the order that I receive them. Just because I have your name on a list doesn't necessarily mean that I'll be able to send you plants. I hope I have enough for the people who are interested.
Cathy"

If you would like to try, you can actually increase the number of plants after you dig them. A Mature Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) plant has a fibrous root system with a small crown and several new shoots. If the plants are still dormant, you can divide the root system, making sure that you have at least one strong new shoot on each division. I've done this several times with good success.

http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=ASIN

I linked a picture of the roots in the link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Photo of Swamp Milkweed Roots

Mary, I added you to the list.

Susan, I also had been under the impression that swamp milkweed had deep taproots but when I dug some out for a friend last spring, there was no root that went deep down. They were actually very easy to dig out. I'm assuming that the roots will be the same this year. Maybe just to be sure before I tell anyone to start sending money for postage, I'd better try digging one out first. I think they'll be okay though. They've been growing here a few years already and so I'd think by now they'd have gotten that taproot on if they were going to. I started that bed in 2006 or 2007, one of those two.

northeast, Thanks for the info. I'll certainly keep that in mind. I was going to try to keep the roots intact, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt if I'd separate them a little if I need to.

Cathy

Cathy,

Two years ago a gopher got into my Swamp milkweed and just about finished it off. I realized this when I could "pull" the plant out of the ground. LOL I took the remainder which the gopher had divided into three parts for me, and potted them. They all survived and are now back in the garden. They don't have a taproot like the tuberosa and some of the more "wild" growing milkweeds, thus, they are great milkweed plants to grow in pots and transfer to the garden.

Sandy

Sandy, Thanks for verifying that for me, about their not having taproots. After I dug some out last year, I thought if they get taproots, they must take their good old time doing it. I had no problem whatsoever getting them out of the ground. As a matter of fact, I could just pull them out fairly easily. Being that it was spring, the ground was wet and I suppose that facilitated that. If I were to try to pull them out in the summer, however, it might be another story.

I have swamp milkweed plants in pots and keep them there year after year to feed the Monarch cats in my big butterfly cage. I keep the plants in 3-gallon pots, which seems to work well. They survive our cold winters sitting outside in the open on top of the ground in those pots. I was contemplating putting these (the ones I'm giving away) in pots too, but oh, the work I'd be making for myself! Oy vey! Not only would I have to scrounge some big pots from somewhere (the nursery doesn't have a problem giving their smaller pots away but I have to wrangle with them to get their bigger ones...lol), but I'd have to either buy LOTS of potting soil or dig ground out of the garden, which I'd hate to do. Then there'd also be the dilemma of where to sit all of those pots where the Monarchs couldn't lay eggs on them. I'd almost have to build another cage, and there would go almost another $150, and I really shouldn't be doing all that sawing and drilling, etc. anyway. So I thought I might as well give them away to people that can use them.

I think the flowers of swamp milkweed are very pretty. I have the white and the pink. Actually, I guess no matter what I do with the swamp milkweed plants (besides just tossing them across the road here) is work because it takes pretty much time to pack them up to send too. I'll actually be losing money because I'm sure I'll end up paying my daughter to do it all for me if the surgeon does my other hand and arm in February or March like I'm suspecting he might. If he does, at least I think I'll be able to garden, maybe not as enthusiastically as I have the past few years, which is what got me in trouble physically in the first place, but at least I'll be able to do it to some degree.

That wasn't very nice of that gopher to get into your swamp milkweed like it did, but I guess that was the gopher's consolation to you...it divided it up to make more plants for you. ;-)

Thank you for clarifying that, Sandy and Cathy. I can always learn something new, and I haven't pulled any out of the ground, so just assumed they grew tap-rooted like other milkweeds. I was actually surprised when I grew A. curassavica to find that it has a tap root. Being tropical in nature, I didn't think it had a tap root since it really didn't need one for survival purposes anyway. Pulling them up the dead plants the following spring was quite a surprise when I discovered to find the lengthy tap root on this milkweed. Not a very fleshy one, but nonetheless, a tap root.

I got my seeds of regular A. curassavica from EverWilde Farms the other day - 1,250 seeds for $2 or $2.50 can't remember which, but still more seeds than most places. A lot of mail order sources only offer 20-30 seeds for that price. They have a lot of native seeds and a friend on the Oklahoma Gardening forum uses them, too.

Another good seed source I intend to order some Salvia coccinea 'Lady in Red' and Salvia subrotunda (supposed to be a superb hummer and butterly plant that reseeds to zone 6) from is The Sample Seed Shop. Most seeds are $1 and others can increase by $.25 to $.50 per packet, but very cheap.

Just thought I would pass that on.....

Susan

Susan, I actually hadn't quite been sure myself if they had a taproot or not; it was just last year when I went to dig them out for someone that I found out they have regular roots. Well, not regular as in the way most garden plants look with the hundreds/thousands of root hairs going out but rather like northeastwisc described here. I was delighted that they were so easy to get out of the ground. I really didn't want to have to struggle with a huge taproot.

I never tried to dig up A. curassavica so I didn't know what kind of root it has, so now we both learned something today. :) Like you, I wouldn't think that it has a taproot.

Now this has me wondering about the purple milkweed. I ordered seeds from PMN and want to put the plants in the bed where I'm taking out the swamp milkweed plants. I'm just wondering if the purple milkweed has taproots. I'd also like to know if they spread through underground root systems/rhizomes like Common Milkweed. If they do, I might lose the order in my bed that I like to have. I'm fanatical about having rows that I can walk through. I might plant half purple milkweed and half tropical milkweed in that bed. That way if I'm unsatisfied with the purple milkweed, at least the bed won't be a total bust. I already know that I like the tropical milkweed and so do the Monarchs. The only drawback about it is that I get itchy from it. I think I'm allergic to the swamp milkweed too, only to a lesser degree. The advantage of having the purple milkweed would be that it wouldn't have to be replanted year after year like the tropical milkweed. The advantage of having tropical milkweed is that I don't have to keep a vigil cutting off milkweed pods to keep the milkweed from spreading; it's an annual that doesn't reseed here. I like to have milkweed but I have to have it in rows, darn it. lol

It sounds like EverWilde Farms sure gives a very generous amount of seeds, which is great. Like you, I've seen websites that have various types of milkweed for what I think is a ridiculous price. I think I've seen tropical milkweed seeds for $4 or $5 and you only get 20 of them. I just think that's pretty expensive.

I had grown 'Lady in Red' plants here in 2008, but I didn't save seeds from them. I actually thought that they'd reseed themselves, but they didn't. One plant came up from them last year but it came up so late in the summer that it didn't even bloom before we got a frost. I had also had some in hanging baskets outside our back porch in 2008 and the hummingbirds absolutely loved them.

I've been thinking so much lately about this year's garden and what I plan to have in it. I am starting more pipevine plants because I really would like to get tons of it established here because I absolutely adore those Pipevine Swallowtail cats! I want to raise as many different kinds of cats as possible and am trying to think up a system that will allow me to not spend so much time cleaning up after them. I just hope that the ideas that are in my head will actually pan out. I hope to revolutionize caterpillar raising as we know it. lol
Cathy

Cathy,

I'm trying to grow out the Swamp Milkweed from tiny plugs I purchased late last year. I currently have them in little individual pots in the greenhouse (which I try to keep at about 40 degrees nighttime temp). I've never grown perennial milkweed and wonder if you'd mind telling me when your MW begins to break dormancy. You're a bit farther north so I imagine I could plan on a bit earlier for my little plugs. Right now they're just little sticks, no beginnings of green sprouts at the base (I assume this is where new growth will show first).

My thanks for your time and thank you for offering to share your un needed plants. We all need to consider planting more host plants for the beautiful little winged creatures.

Mary

May I get in on this if when you dig them up and you have some left
Rena

Mary, Here in central PA my swamp milkweed plants break dormancy around the end of March. I hope your plants do well. That's how I got all of the ones that I have, by planting them myself and watching them grow. Many Monarch cats have eaten from the plants.

Rena, I'll add you to the list and let you know later on one way or the other.
Cathy

It's been warming up here in PA and I think that it will only be a matter of a week or two until I can dig the swamp milkweed plants out. That is, assuming that yet another snowstorm doesn't come our way. This has been a L-O-N-G winter!!! I won't miss it! Right now after having temps up in the upper 50's for the past few days, there are only a few patches of snow left in our yard. If it weren't for the fact that I'd probably sink into the mud up to my knees, I could even try digging the plants out right now.

I've tried contacting the people who have emailed me and the ones who have said here that they would like some of the plants, BUT I haven't heard back from some of you. If you've changed your minds and no longer want the plants, that's fine, but if I don't hear from you within the next week, then I'll pass them on to other interested people. If any of the people on the forum want to put their name in as an alternate in case I don't hear from these people (time is running out), email me and I'll add you to my list. If I don't hear from one of the people already on my list to get plants, then they will go to an alternate. I really don't want to just throw these plants away, but at the same time, I want to plant tropical milkweed there instead, so if I can't give all of the plants away, then they will end up getting pitched. I don't like that idea but don't have anywhere else to go with them.

Just as a reminder, I'm asking for the price for postage of a flat rate postal box to mail the plants and nothing else. I'm not advertising to make money, as I'm sure most of you know by now, as I've given away various types of seeds and plants before. Everyone who I've heard from so far about the swamp milkweed plants is interested in having the plants mailed in a large flat rate box, which costs $14.50 to mail. A medium flat rate is $10.70. Get your orders in, folks! :)

Cathy

Cathy,

Thank you for doing this. It is very kind of you and a wonderful opportunity for anyone planning a butterfly garden (or increasing the size of one). If I didn't already have my little Swamp Milkweed plugs, I'd be on your list in a heartbeat. Healthy root stock from a home garden is the best of all worlds and you can get a lot of root stock into one of those flat rate boxes. Last year a lovely lady was removing a Lily of the Valley bed and offered to send out bare root plants in a flat rate box for the cost of postage. I was one of the lucky people to participate and this year I have a large bed of healthy big LOTV eyes showing already. It is going to be a fantastic spring. And all made possible because of this ladie's kindness to the gardening community.

Kudo's to you for your generosity.

Mary

Mary, I hope you get lots of Monarch cats on your swamp milkweed this year. I can hardly wait until they show up here, but it will be a few months yet. When I'm putting the roots in the boxes to mail to people, I definitely plan on putting as many as I can in each box. I like mailing in flat rate boxes because you already know the cost ahead of time and you don't have to worry about keeping the weight down, so I can stuff as many in there as I can fit in those boxes.

You're lucky to have gotten those Lily of the Valley plants. I think they smell wonderful! I have a small bed of them under our one lilac bush and have always enjoyed them.

Thanks for your kind words.

Cathy

I wanted to jump in and add that Cathy sent me a generous sampling of assorted seeds 2 years ago and is a fabulous person to get plants or seeds from. Now if I could just get the verbena bon. to germinate! I got my start of swamp milkweed from Cathy!

Pam

Cathy is one of the most generous, butterfly conscious persons on this forum, and we're lucky to have her here!

How long has it been now, Cathy? Three years? We really should celebrate members' birthdays, the date they joined, here on this forum. That would be too cool!

Susan

Pam and Susan, You both are making me blush. ;-) Seriously, thanks for saying such nice things. It made my day. I've just always believed in helping people, and of course I'm trying my best to help the butterflies.

Pam, I don't know what to tell you about the V. bonariensis. Have you tried wintersowing? I guess when I planted mine several years ago, I hadn't been aware about it being hard to germinate. Actually, when I sowed my seeds, that was before I found out about wintersowing and I guess I sowed the seeds just like I had been sowing all my other seeds. I think I merely sowed them in potting soil in late winter and the plants came up. Since they are small seeds, I wouldn't plant them very deep, maybe just press them into the soil. I'd try various ways and see which works. I sure hope that you can get some to germinate because the butterflies sure do love those plants.

Susan, Thank you and I think we're lucky to have you too. I've been reading here lately more than I've been typing. I do really enjoy seeing what other people are doing in their gardens, and I keep up with what you're doing. I remember your generosity to me and if there's anything I can do for you, I'd do whatever I can to help you. :-)

I just looked at my profile because I didn't know exactly how long it has been since I joined here. It was in August of 2006. I started my butterfly garden the previous summer and it included several swamp milkweed plants that I had bought at a local nursery. I didn't get Monarchs that first year, maybe because it was so late in the summer when I got the garden underway, but I was thrilled in 2006 when I found some cats on the milkweed plants. I don't remember exactly when I first found the forum (reading but not yet posting). I guess I read enough here to pique my curiosity and to become interested enough to start a butterfly garden but didn't post right away. I suppose I felt an urgent need to post when I didn't know what I was doing when I found the first Monarch cat but didn't know the details of raising one. So I guess you could say that when I first found the forum I probably read just enough to become dangerous. lol

Thank goodness that there are such nice people here like you, MissSherry, CalSherry/aka tdogmom, and others who didn't discourage my questions or I really would have felt beside myself. I suspect I'm not the only one who starts into a project only to feel like she got in over her head. Well, I think when I first started planting for the butterflies I didn't really have any intentions of raising caterpillars; however, then once I found some I felt the need to protect them. All of a sudden it became urgent to me that I not let anything get to the cats. If I had been told by people that I should go read first, I probably wouldn't have been able to save those first cats because till I had read enough to feel like I knew what I was doing, I'm sure it would have been too late for them and they'd have perished. Because of the generosity of you and others I've learned a lot and raised many cats over the past 4 years and have been trying to pay it forward ever since. Thanks so much for opening up another world for me and enabling me to help another part of nature, which I love so much (I've been into birding for 20+ years and have online birding friends too). I think my butterflying and birding friends are some of the nicest people that I've ever met. I really did get to meet many birding friends in person about 5 yr. ago when we were at a get-together in TN, but that's a whole other story.

Yes, that would be too cool to celebrate people's birthdays and join dates. I noticed that your birthday is just 4 days before my husband's.
Cathy

On another thread we discussed getting V. bonariensis to germinate. I wintersowed mine to get it started, and others have mentioned that they believe it needs some stratification in order to break dormancy. However, now that I think about it - and it takes some mulling over for me LOL - seed that drops to the ground during summer germinates in situ without any stratification - so that kinda puts that theory to rest. So in response to the question about getting VB to germinate - I don't have a clear cut answer, other than to try anything you can in order for it to grow, including stratification and planting in situ, and any other method you can think of. No germination could have something to do with the viability of the seed, seed rotting, seed stolen by marauding ground critters, a gazillion reasons.

Cathy, thank you for the nice words. I, for one, never look down on newbies looking for answers and help. And I agree with you about raising caterpillars - I think it must be our nurturing, motherly attitudes - which I think our guys have, too! Don't want to leave the boys out of the equasion! LOL!

The weather is looking more and more like spring here, and I am wintersowing my warm weather seed now. I'm getting a bit slower every year now I notice, so wish me luck in getting the garden cleared for spring and planting my seedlings eventually, and I wish you all the best of luck, too!

Susan

Susan, I know exactly what you mean about getting slower every year. I feel like people are getting tomatoes on their stalks when I'm just getting mine put into the ground! LOL I do what I can and that's about all I can do. People say to make to-do lists, but then I always make mine too long and then I just get depressed seeing that I only got to about number 3 at the end of the day and there were 10 things on my list to get done. Ha. My husband always tells me that I have too many projects. If I'm not doing something butterfly related, I'm doing something for the birds. I just found a house sparrow trap that I like and am retrofitting all of my bluebird houses for that. I'm also caulking one of the buildings (where we keep our tools,etc.) so the bats can't get in it because I'm sure they'll try to get in there once they see that the attic has been sealed off. I'm putting a bat house up for them too; I already have 2 up and some of the bats were going in those last year. I'm done with my wintersowing; I just finished up with my peppers, tomatoes and annual flowers a few days ago. I'd like to finally get my bricks put in for a path in the garden this year. I've "only" had them sitting out there for the past 3 years now and each year I say I'm going to get it done this year. Ha. I have so many butterfly, gardening, etc. projects that it makes my head hurt thinking about what all I want to get done. Ha. Best of luck to you getting your things done too, Susan. Oooh, I hope I get to see PVS again this year! Those are the most fun cats for me to raise of the ones I've raised so far.
Cathy

Cathy, do you wintersow your tomatoes or start them inside? I wintersowed them one year in March here, and they did great. We are expecting this spring to be longer and cooler this year, though, so I find myself wondering if it is too early to wintersow and put the containers outside right now. What do you think?

Susan

m, Susan, Last year was the first that I wintersowed tomatoes. They did so well that I decided that I'd start them that way every year. I think every seed I sowed must have come up last year; I had so many plants that I advertised my excess on Freecycle and some lady was ecstatic to get them because she hadn't gotten a chance to start any at all. She agreed with me about the high prices of plants in the stores. For a fraction of the cost of plants I figure a person is MUCH better off starting their own from seed. I guess, though, that starting plants is drudgery to some people, whereas I think it's fun. I love playing in the dirt! :-D When I'm outside working in the garden, my daughter says that I'm out there playing in the sandbox again. Ha. I love gardening and will do it until I'm no longer able.

I had been wondering too if it might be too early to wintersow the tomato seeds but decided to just go ahead and do it. I decided that it will be okay, and I'm happy that it's all done now. My thinking is that we've had so long of a winter that spring is anxious to get here and so it will get warm early. This week it's supposed to be sunny and in the 60's here, which is nice for us for March. Several years in the past we've had our biggest snowstorms in the third week of March, but I think all of the snow is behind us except for maybe some showers that won't last long. I hope it's nice there at your place too.
Cathy

I would love to have some of your swamp milkweed if you have some left. I raise cats from eggs for the students in my school. They love to experience the butterfly life cycle! I have read your posts with great interest and plan to plant some pipevine to attract the pipevine swallowtails, also. I have planted tropical milkweed and have a little that survived the winter, but I need a more prolific larval food source which I think the swamp milkweed will provide. I've also planted the passionflower for the gulf fritilary cats which are very interesting in this area (Houston).

Let me know the status of your milkweed. I would take the larger box if you have that available.

schmetterlingmom, Sprechen Sie Deutsch? :) Okay, that's probably about all I know in German after having been away from it for a long time (took German in school). Anyway, back to your question. Yes, I'm sure I'll have enough swamp milkweed for you because those people never did email me back so I guess it's their loss and your gain. I hate to be that way, but then again, I've given them a chance and haven't heard from them, and I don't want to throw the plants away.

That's great that you raise cats for your students. I'd bet that they really enjoy learning about the butterfly life cycle. None of the teachers that I had taught us that way and I wish they had. I might have gotten interested in butterflies much sooner than I did rather than just a few years ago, but better late than never.

That's great that you also plan on raising pipevine for the Pipevine Swallowtails. I love raising cats, but those are my very favorite. They just seem more lovable than the other kinds that I've raised. To me, this kind is the teddy bear of caterpillars.

Oh, I wish I'd get Gulf Fritillaries up here! You're lucky you live where they are. I plant passionvines, but the only butterfly cat here that would eat them is the Variegated Fritillary. Well, it's a nice butterfly too though. I guess it's a case of wanting what I don't have. Ha.

I was going to email you to let you know my mailing address, but you don't have your email link set up in your profile. Could you do that so I could email you and I'll let you know then where to mail your payment so I can mail you a large flat rate box. Thanks. I'm starting to mail the plants/roots out this week.

Cathy

schmetterlingmom, You could also click on my email link that I have set up on My Page and email me that way.
Cathy

Cathy, I'd love to get some swamp milkweed from you. Most of my butterfly bed got ripped out last fall when DH decided to improve drainage in the yard, so now I have plenty of room for it.

Thanks,
Janet