That article takes a somewhat politically correct slant on the subject. FACT: overpopulation of deer is helping invasive thrive over natives, because they'd rather eat natives to extinction. The exotics taste bad to deer. But, oh no, we can't kill off bambi. This actually leads to an amusing scenario where "leftists" and "rightists" end up on the same side of the issue. The former don't want culling of herds because OMG the poor deer will be shot, the latter don't want deer to be too hard to find when they hunt, so they see state herd "management" as a good thing. I've heard some old burghers of Harford county talk about their hunts on the MARC train. They can bag 5-8 deer in a single night! Too easy I say! A handful of us sane ones are left in the middle, who realize deer should be hunted as close as possible to extinction east of the Appalachians. Without a top order predator, they are now out of ecological balance. Otherwise, we have to allow coyotes and wolves back into the area, and worry about our cats and yippy dogs being eaten. (And yes, I'm glad they have killed the ones they do, I have no doubt the reason I don't have near the deer problem people in more genteel areas like the Philly Mainline do is because they are being killed in massive numbers by locals. Keep killing, guys!) FACT: the alteration of the landscape on the east coast has created artificial environments where exotics thrive. Yet where is this writer advocating the complete cessation of absolutely all land development of any kind, to save what's left? Let's close all the railroads, and highways, since they create corridors for invasives to move. (in some cases, even invasives from other parts of the US! I have no doubt the Baccharis halimifolia along I-95 north of Baltimore are not native to that area.) Sorry, politically progressive ecologically minded writers. No more Acela for you. Flying will help preserve native woodlands much better. FACT: 95% of native species have been lost their range to farming, not to invasives. The problem is really that invasive and natives are fighting for tiny pieces of the pie that are left after agriculture. Yet, is the writer advocating the wholesale abandonment of agricultural lands? I don't see that anywhere. One of the reasons people like the landscape of Maryland versus some other states is how much "open land' there is, because "liberal" Maryland was a pioneer in undertaking means to protect agricultural land. As you fly over the Potomac to land at Dulles, the contrast being the MoCo agricultural preserve and NoVA is stark. Yes those fields create forest edges which would not otherwise exist, and are exactly the places where invasives take hold. FACT: she's actually wrong about all of those being introduced by the so-called horticultural trade. Multiflora was brought into control soil erosion - doesn't sound like horticulture to me, sounds like agriculture. Other invasives were brought in by private agricultural interests. So, I actually agree that people should plant butterfly bush with caution, but the whole issue of invasives has a larger ecological context that many of these native plant snobs ignore. Here's a great article by Stephen Jay Gould on the matter: Here is a link that might be useful: http://arnoldia.arboretum.harvard.edu/pdf/articles/483.pdf This post was edited by davidrt28 on Mon, May 5, 14 at 20:07

That is great news! Last year, it seemed Minnesota had a good year for monarchs compared to most of the country. I hope this encouraging news means more HEALTHY monarchs for everyone! I will start tropical milkweed indoors in march. We already have a large patch of common that has been reliable for over 25 years. Last fall, it had more seed pods than normal and I think we're in for a TON of it. I will have some extra weeding to do but it's so worth it. I also planted butterfly weed seeds last year, so I'm hoping that comes back too. But for now, we are supposed to get 6-8 inches of snow on Sunday....sigh I always wonder how the monarchs find our milkweed each year without fail...definitely some amazing butterflies, Tony

Have fun! But when the butterflies emerge, they will not going to be bound to your garden. They have wings and can fly away. I don't like caterpilars much. They are ugly and chew up on my plants. So if I spot them, just take them away, far away. Despite that, there are a lot of butterflies around my garden. They are the pretiest insects with an ugly past (wink, wink)

Woodyoak, I'm pretty sure vine milkweed covers a large area of the US & seems like I read it grows native all the way up into Canada. I believe planting milkweed makes people feel good and like they are helping and to a small degree I imagine it does help a small percent of them. Still, I can't help but think its just a tiny drop of 'fix' in a big bucket toward improving the larger problem of whats going on. A bigger problem is the situation in Mexico with the "handful" of remaining wintering shelter areas warm enough for large numbers of them to survive so they can make the yearly migration at all and make use of all that milkweed being planted in peoples yards. I certainly have the plants growing here to attract butterflies but we have been pretty short on many types of butterflies, not just monarchs, and those are just as big a concern to me even though they don't get the press coverage. Some years are good for butterflies, some bad. Sometimes fall is heavy, sometimes spring is, sometimes neither. It varies from year to year. I'm editing to add that the terrible and lengthy drought we've had throughout the mid section, which we are hopefully coming out of, probably did more to reduce the populations than tropical butterfly weed planted in peoples gardens which by the way isn't winter hardy except in the deep southern zones. Here is some good news. Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/9337/20141002/monarch-butterflies-expected-rebound-mexico.htm This post was edited by TexasRanger10 on Sat, Jan 17, 15 at 18:24