Hi Tracey;
Great observations! I volunteer at a butterfly house where we grow a variety of milkweeds including "Ice Ballet". I collect information on which varieties the monarchs lay on in the house. I am not sure that it would apply as well to you because it is a forced choice. Meaning that at certain points, our milkweed is so covered with eggs and caterpillars they may have to use it. However, I can tell you that the caterpillars eat the foliage just fine. You may not find any eggs and cats on the "Ice Ballet" because they have the other milkweed to lay on and that is their preferred choice in your garden situation.
Cheers,
Elisabeth

Boy, they sure don't discriminate in my garden, the little pigs! They have eaten it down twice this year. The only milkweed they don't lay eggs on, but will eat if they have to eat, is cynanchum laeve, which is very low in cardiac glycosides. Curassavica is highest.

Oh, I have lots of discrimination in my garden. They rarely lay eggs on the common milkweed, even bypassed the tropical this year. Normally I don't get alot on the tropical anyway, but then again, this is a strange year. I was actually planning on removing some of the pink swamp in favor of the white, but I may have to rethink that. Gotta keep what they like ;)
My eggs haven't hatched yet, but I'm going to do a test. I'm sure they'll eat it, but I need to see it to believe it, lol. Thanks...

Well, I fed a few leaves to some babies I'm cat-sitting and one did take a few nibbles, but moved off to a piece of pink swamp. I'm sure they'd eat it if there weren't a choice, but I'd prefer growing and feeding the varieties they like, not what they'd settle for. I'm bumming; Ice Ballet is such a beautiful bloom and is gorgeous foliage wise.

I have the white and pink swamp. They prefer the pink! When I had only white, they used the white. But, now that I have a mass planting of pink, they go for it. I collected pink seeds and gave those away to 5 readers on my blog - hoping to get more Monarch habitats started!

I saw females on the asclepias tuberosa, but haven't found any cats there, yet.

One of the cats crossed the garden path from the pink swamp milkweed and climbed into a container planting and up the purple fountain grass for the metamorphosis! I'm watching the chrysalis, formed this past Sunday.

Cameron

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Tracey, This year I found 2 mature monarch cats. on my Ice Ballet, for the first time. I've had the plant 3 years now. I do find more cats. on the A. purpurescens growing along the road I live on. Now that it's late in the summer, there are a lot of cats. on my A. curassavica.

You mentioned collecting seed from your 'Ice Ballet' - is it true from seed? I thought that being a cultivar it wouldn't be,,, or are you just growing it without regard to that?