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Butterfly Garden

Tropical Milkweed

11 years ago

This year my tropical milkweed got exceptionally tall (at least from what I observed here other years). It is about 4 feet tall and seems almost like a jungle when I'm trying to look for cats. Just yesterday I found about 40. I hope most of them make it...most of them are already fairly big. It's so hard to go through all of the milkweed when the plants are this big. They apparently mustn't have minded the dry summer; I didn't even water them and they look so nice and healthy. Here you can see them for yourself and I didn't even know when I took the picture that there's a Monarch cat near the front.

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Comments (5)

MissSherry
11 years ago
Those look great, Cathy! Tropical milkweed can withstand some drought, so I'm not surprised it's looking good. 'Looks like you've got enough to feed a lot of monarchs and provide lots of nectar for adult butterflies to nectar on, too!

Sherry
caterwallin
Original Author
11 years ago
Thanks, Sherry! Yes, I have quite a bit of milkweed to feed lots of Monarchs. My season is winding down now though. All of the cats I have right now will pupate within the next few days if they haven't been parasitized, and I haven't been finding any eggs outside lately. I'm glad because it's getting pretty late for the Monarchs to be laying eggs and for their offspring to make it to Mexico considering from egg laying to adult stage takes 3 weeks or so. It's been getting pretty chilly here at night and I can see that some of the leaves on the milkweed plants are getting yellow. I hope that most of the butterflies that I'll be releasing will eclose before October.
Cathy
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have you heard this about Tropical Milkweed and Monarchs?
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Comments (3)
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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Tropical Milkweed
Q
Comments (2)
Well, the more that "other critters" cover the leaves the less is available for butterflies to lay their eggs on. Depending upon what kind of bugs you have they can harm the overall health of the plants. Aphids are pests that most of us have to deal with. It's possible to hose many of them off or just slide your fingers over the leaves and squish them.
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Larva ID on tropical milkweed: friend or foe?
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Comments (4)
It's an army worm, that makes a moth. They actually DON'T occur in large groups, so I doubt it'll eat too much. They're pretty much generalists - you could put it on another plant and see if it'll eat that one. Sherry
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Planting Native Milkweed instead of Tropical Milkweed
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Comments (1)
In NE FL (Jax area) tropical milkweed does die back as soon as we get a good frost here but this is a good reminder to try and 'wintersow' my other milkweed seeds I bought last spring before I totally forget about them.
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terrene
11 years ago
Wow Cathy, gorgeous patch of Asclepias curassavica! Do you direct sow or start it in pots? It looks like you have some of the yellow flowers 'Silky gold' mixed in your patch. Do you save any seed that you could share? I would be thrilled to send you a SASBE, that seed is on my "want" list.

The Monarchs stopped laying around here about the 1st of September. The nights are getting quite cool here too. Almost 40F the other night!

I still have about 6 cats left, all 4th/5th instar, and about 25 chrysalises. Then, it's bye-bye to my Monarch babies. Sniff.
caterwallin
Original Author
11 years ago
Thanks, Terrene! Sure, I could save some seed for you. I didn't collect any yet but have to if I want it again next year, which I do. The Monarchs prefer this kind for laying their eggs on over any other kind I've tried.

I know what you mean, I'll miss the Monarchs too.

Cathy
bananasinohio
11 years ago
Sweet (I am sounding like my almost teenager now)! Isn't it funny how A. curassavica can vary? I planted some this spring from seedlings and they haven't gotten much past 12 inches. I really needed them to be bigger. I have been watering them a lot too. Must be the soil. Maybe I will try silky gold next year too. I just really like the red and gold combo.
Cheers,
Elisabeth

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?what to do with this little guy?

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