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Butterfly Garden

Monarchs, Milkweed - How do you have enough??

15 years ago

The Monarchs have been doing very well finding my hidden milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) patch. The cats have killed off several plants - including two large swamp milkweeds. Just as soon as there are a few leaves on the stubs, there are more cats. Unfortunately, this means there are a lot of starving caterpillars. This is the third or fourth brood since December.

I had 6 full size Asclepias and the 2 swamps when I started along with numerous volunteers of very small size.

I currently have 3 stubby plants in the garden and about a dozen 3-4" plants (new starts) inside a screened area and am planning on keeping them there until I think they will survive severe munchfests.

How in the world do you have enough milkweed? How many plants do you start with?

Thanks for any advice.

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Comments (5)

butterflyman
15 years ago
You only have enough milkweed when your supply = demand.

Since you're in Zone 9 it's like the milkweed cafeteria is always open so you need to plant as much as your landscape can hold.

Usually predators keep things in check, but if they're in short supply, you'll need to keep increasing your number of plants until you have enough.

I may have 150 plants, and my neighbors have plants also so there is generally no supply problem in Missouri.
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ladywingr
Original Author
15 years ago
OKey dokey and thank you. I guess I need to buy quite a few plants and get them going.

Do you figure that 2 weeks is long enough to hold them to make sure they are free from any pesticides, or should I hold them longer?

Thank you again.
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Hi Ashley, Maybe someone from your area could tell you when to expect the Monarchs. I'd have thought they'd be there by now, but not everyone can attract them right away. Last year was my first year at butterflying and was lucky enough to get them and raised 70 cats. So far I have one in a pupa, 2 ready to go in one, and 10 munching away on milkweed. I have loads of milkweed planted for them and so maybe the female just couldn't resist stopping by here. I'll see more eventually, I'm sure. Yes, those bugs are Oleander Aphids, and I bet they look like the picture in the link I provided. I never use pesticides on any of my plants. If you do that and a butterfly would happen to come by after that, it could kill the butterfly. If it lays eggs, it would kill the caterpillars when they eat the leaves. I'm not sure how long the pesticides last, but I really don't want to use them and chance losing any Monarchs because of it. I squoosh the aphids, and some people blast them with water. Of course, I don't think that kills them but would get them off of your plant temporarily. Those things multiply like crazy, so I prefer to kill them; otherwise I'm afraid I'd end up having a million of them here. Good luck with things, and I hope the Monarchs show up there. Cathy Here is a link that might be useful: Oleander Aphids
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I've been raising Monarchs for nearly 10 years and my property is a Monarch Waystation and yes I've heard this about tropical milkweed. There may be problems growing in the southern zones where Asclepias curassavica is perennial but not here in zone 6 (in my experience). Our season just isn't long enough - often the tropical milkweed doesn't even have enough time to produce mature seed pods, before it's killed with a hard frost. What's more, as soon as it gets cold at night the Monarchs are out of here pronto (usually around late Sept/early October). There is no chance whatsoever they are going to hang around because of the tropical milkweed. I grow common, swamp, purple, and orange (butterfly weed) milkweeds and it is a finicky genus - not all species do well every year, it is a target for insects, and it randomly dies back, so I grow a fair amount of the tropical because it attracts egg laying females to the garden. I then collect the eggs and raise them on whatever cuttings are doing well, the caterpillars are adaptable, and if I've got a lot of hungry 5th instar caterpillars to feed, will sometimes collect extra common milkweed cuttings from wild sources.
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roper2008
15 years ago
Boy you are lucky to have so many monarchs. I have many wasps that
prey upon them. I got mad, so I raised some in my sunroom. I now
have 4 cocoons. Plenty of milkweed in my backyard. I wish I could send
you some.
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ladywingr
Original Author
15 years ago
The monarchs do pretty well against the wasps. The orange sulphurs on the cassia, not so well. About the time they are big enough to "J", the wasps move in.

Thanks for thinking of me with the milkweed. I guess I just wasn't thinking "big" enough with the butterfly garden. Now I have to test the salt-tolerance of the plants and see if I can expand even further.
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docmom_gw
15 years ago
I'm still waiting for any butterfly activity around my milkweed. I have at least 20 mature clumps of several varieties and hundreds of new volunteers, but I've yet to see a single butterfly in my yard. It's still early in the season, but I feel bad that there are cats starving farther south when I have a feast waiting here for them! My time will come.

Martha
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