Wasps seem to e a seasonal thing for me - the caterpillars survive best during the colder weather, when wasps can't fly around. Funny thing is, even when it seems the wasps have gotten all the caterpillars, a few always seem to be overlooked & survive to pupate.

Aphids are always a pest on my tropical milkweed, but they attract a number of beneficial insects, like ladybugs & syrphid flies, to lay their eggs & soon their larvae have eaten all the aphids.

I really don't like to mess w/ wasps or their nests, since I've had a bad allergic reaction to stings in the past, so I just let Nature take its course. t

The plant never recovered to come back up?? I just let nature take it's course on this one, along with the passion vine. If you spray it you will kill the cats which is the reason for wanting to grow it. Nature can seem cruel and humans usually lose in one way or the other when we try to intervene.

Part of providing for caterpillars and butterflies is accepting the inevitability of life, which kind of sucks in cases like the Monarchs where we really want them all to survive. You can do a few things to help them out though. You can grow milkweed out in your garden as well in a sunny location in a lanai or porch. When you find the caterpillars on the outdoor plants, gently remove them and place them on the protected plants. That way they can mature in a safe place and you can release them once they break their chrysalis.

Another thing is to not clump all your milkweed together. My first year providing for cats, I had all my parsley (for black swallowtails) and milkweed all bunched together and between the cardinals and the wasps, the caterpillars didn't stand a chance. Now I let the milkweed reseed itself where ever it wants and plant the parsley in random spots around the yard, the result is that I now get much more butterflies fluttering about, though this last year the Monarchs were particularly scarce.

As far as the aphids go, the best you can do is try to get to them before the caterpillars find the plant. I usually take a 4-gallon bucket with soapy water with me and 'flick' the milkweed causing the aphids to drop into the bucket. Eventually, ladybugs will find the aphids and decimate the population, but for me this has always been a cycle. The aphids come in, do their damage and a couple weeks later the ladybugs arrive to wipe them out. I then get maybe three weeks of peace before the aphids return and by this time the ladybugs have moved on. And don't bother purchasing ladybugs for your garden, I was talking with an entymologist and learned that while ladybugs do eat aphids, they can be quite particular about what kind of aphids they eat. It seems for every type of aphid, there is a type of ladybug that specifically feeds on them.

I turn the hose on the aphids and rub them off with my fingers, they probably climb back up, but same again. For wasps, pinch the red flowers off the milkweed. Wasps are attracted to red. Without the red, they won't see them as much. Bottom line is that some will survive. I sometimes put the cats in a small travelling hampster cage, put milkweed leaves in a watering corsage holder or small vase and feed them. That way I can watch them close up daily. They are fascinating. Every way, butterflies are a win-win situation and pleasure.

I think that you are referring to Asclepias tuberosa as "butterfly weed."

I have tried to grow this several times without luck here in Central Florida. It seems to grow slowly and then get eaten or killed by something.

My advice would be to grow tropical milkweed (Asclepias Curassavica) instead. I believe that the answers above are referring to this plant rather than the tuberosa.

Tropical milkweed is easy to grow throughout Florida and is an excellent plant to attract monarchs. It will self-seed and come up in different places in the garden after you plant it for the first time.

Here is a link that might be useful: Asclepias Curassavica

True, tom123, I grow the A. Curassavica - have never had any luck w/ the other types.

In my limited experience with Asclepias, and I'm still working with it, this genus seems to like cold stratification. The longer I leave it in my beer fridge (the wife doesn't like me keeping bins of seeds in the main fridge), the better it seems to do after germinating. It does however, seem to be a very desirable snack for snails and slugs. I've had two-inch tall seedlings on the top shelf of my rack disappear in a night and a few times found small snails under the pot afterwards, none of the other seedlings will be touched or will only be a little nibbled. The funny part is that once you get A. tuberosa growing, it will happily reseed itself everywhere. It is just getting those initial seeds to germinate, grow and survive seems to be the tough part.

Hi Julie
My Yellow Milkweed gets covered in aphids every year, but it never seems to be affected too terribly. It gets cut back when I have cats to feed inside and then new stems sprout.

The wasps were the reason I brought caterpillars in - when I saw one pestering a big cat and then biting it, I was so grossed out and dismayed that I got a little OCD about it. I hope someone has an answer for you about keeping wasps away .

Leekle - so how long do you leave the seeds in the fridge for the best growth? I have syriaca and incarnata and viridis in the fridge right now since the 5th. Is 4 weeks long enough?

I have some extra seeds of A. currassavica, (the yellow one), A. incarnata, A. viridis and A. syriaca if anyone would like to trade for the others, like tuberosa.

Thanks
Susie

Susie,

I'm not one to really ask. I suppose I should have conducted this like a real scientific experiment, but I didn't. I have some Prairie Milkweed seeds (A. sullivantii) that have been in the fridge for almost a year. I have tried some of them every couple of months with increasing germination rates but still no good growth after germination. I keep feeling like I'm missing something required for this one to grow.

I think for A. tuberosa I had fairly good germination and growth after 3-5 months of stratification.

I will be setting out some cells of A. sullivanti, A. Tuberosa (now going on 8 months in the fridge) and A. verticillata (another that has been in for almost a year) some time in the next few weeks and seeing how they go. I am now thinking that I just may end up purchasing some more seeds and actually tracking the stratification/germination/growth like a proper experiment.

Can't exactly remember the source, but somehow, the planting of some one or other of the Asclepias-but this may be in the SW, not FL-is causing the monarchs to stay in whatever area I'm talking about too long, and not migrating as they "should". Wish I could remember the details, but since you're all trying to help the butterflys, it might be worth your time to investigate via search.

Another comment; Funny and a bit surprising to see so many of the same Asclepias species that can be found up here, also gracing your FL gardens. Generally though, that seems to be the case-numerous more northern genera and even species also growing down there, albeit, I doubt seeds from up here would do well there and vice versa. I was standing in one spot at Corkscrew Swamp back in Dec . and in that one location, most all the plants I could see were species also found in WI! Kinda interesting, if OT.

+oM

The debated species is A. curassavica or Tropical Milkweed which is the popular species in Florida and much of the southern states because it does so well and comes back from roots each spring. Some say that it is causing the Monarchs to stick around longer than they should, but some say that once the Monarchs undergo the hormonal change that allows them to migrate and live so long in Mexico, then that is where they will head, regardless of what's in bloom. They will just have more sources to fuel up on the way south, but only in the southern states. The midwest is another story, where much of the areas monarchs might stop to refuel have been replaced by crop fields. I have read that some farmers in the midwest are starting to allow for 'wild borders' around the crops, but time will tell if this will be a boon or just not quite enough.

Some Monarchs in South Florida never go through the hormonal change required to migrate and will instead stay. Some even say that South Florida is actually a natural stopping spot for migrating Monarchs from the Eastern US, it's just not as well known as the Mexican migrations. But those in South Florida not only survive the mild winters, they continue to breed and this leads researchers to think that maybe there just isn't enough genetic diversity left among those populations to ensure stronger offspring. And with all the development of suburban/retirement communities in Florida, we're quickly becoming a nectar/milkweed barren place as well.

This is another case where lots of fingers are being pointed at one sure reason for the population decline, when the more likely truth is that there are a number of reasons causing them to disappear.

Personally, I think the populations of Monarchs in Australia are proof that the species is able to adapt to climate and location, leading me to believe it is the many sterile yards and urban areas that deserve much of the blame. There are even many beautiful, plant filled gardens down here in Florida that are really little more than deserts to butterflies.

Here is a link that might be useful: UF Article on Monarchs

This post was edited by Leekle2ManE on Thu, Jan 29, 15 at 9:53

Thanks so much for the above article from the U of Florida. It was very informative and well-researched.

Some observations:

I have a permanent colony of Monarchs here in Central Florida as long as we don't have a hard freeze. I have them now and have had them all year. A hard freeze will kill off the adults and the caterpillars. We really have not had a hard freeze this year or even last year where I live (Clermont-about 20 miles due west of Orlando.)

The article mentioned White vine (Sarcostemma clausum) as larval source for Monarchs. The last few years I have had an abundance of this vine, due, I believe, to the mild weather. I have never seen a caterpillar on one of these vines. Maybe they do better in southern Florida. In my garden they are just a pest.

The article seems to think that the tropical milkweed (A. curassavica) that most of us have can be dangerous to Monarch diversity, since they are so attractive to monarchs and so easy to grow that they are possibly encouraging Monarchs to not migrate. The research seems unclear on this at the moment, but I have no doubts that these plants do attract Monarchs and do encourage them to stick around. How many would have migrated north or south if we did not have these plants is uncertain.

The ones that visit my garden sure look healthy, but who knows if my growing the tropical milkweed will discourage the diversification of the gene pool. I'm pretty sure, however, that my garden does add to the numbers of Monarchs around this area and I can't convince myself to stop growing the A. curassavica since the Monarchs love it so.

Great-looking plant too, that's for sure. Honestly, if I lived down there, it would be hard to resist.

Leekle, your comments regarding "sterile" FL yards really hits the nail. Are any of you familiar with the Florida Native Nurseries Association? I might have mislabeled that organization just now, but when I was last down there, I picked up the magazine/pamphlet thing they published and it's really quite good. And yes, there is SO MUCH room for improvement down there, in terms of making the endless subdivisions more butterfly (and other wildlife) friendly. I just wonder if and when that initiative will pick up steam. So much good could be done. And that's not at all to say there's no place for any non-natives. A mix is the best, IMO, for so many reasons.

+oM

I think you're talking about F.A.N.N., Florida Association of Native Nurseries. There is also Plant Real Florida which has a nice database of not only what is native to Florida, but what type of ecosystem your area would have been before it was developed and what plants would have naturally been growing in that area before disturbance from Europeans. I briefly thought about solely using that list as a guide of what to plant in my yard, but the results wouldn't have been all that interesting to look at. As you say, the key is to have a mix of plants that are supposed to be in your area and some exotics to make it interesting and appealing.

I'm interested in trying to grow tuberosa and incarnata but sure not willing to wait months for germination. Anyone had any success with speeding up the process? I'm trying seed nicking based on a Cornell University reference here, Mechanical Scarification or Seed Coat Manipulation, top of page 30 - last sentence in paragraph.

Tom

Here's something I read on the Milkweed Forum that you may have also seen . . .

Here is a link that might be useful: A. tuberosa does not need cold to germinate