Thanks all, I am off to a good start with pipevine and question mark eggs of my own. All my large pipevine cats from the arb have pupated so I don't have to feed them. Thanks goodness. Catherinet, I do have it in partial shade. At the arboretum it is under shade cloth and still grows like a weed. So, it can take some shade. I have it growing along a rabbit fence. My experience is that it takes a few years for the main vines to get larger and support a lot of secondary vines. Dan, I located a patch of nettle. I assume it is wood nettle, since it is in the woods. There were RAs around it, so I will have to go back and look for eggs. What do you use to handle nettles, dish gloves? Cheers, Elisabeth

Oh, I won't let it stop me! I guess it's the specter of OE that intimidates me, specifically. I'm not sure how I'd handle that. But on the other hand, Monarchs are kind of hard to resist. :) Silly question...can milkweed be planted in pots, by any chance? This post was edited by alex928 on Sat, Aug 23, 14 at 20:20

Hi Steve et al, (is that right by the way, or did I just pull that out of a hat?) I had no idea that I was bringing up the question at all in my remark about A. tuberosa. I was only mentioning that I heard that A. tuberosa was not as toxic as some of the other popular milkweeds and that I had never been able to get it to grow anyway so I gave up on it years ago. I wondered whether you had it growing yourself or whether you might have been confusing it with curassavica which I have all over the place. But the question you raise is interesting though I have no knowledge of the subject and never thought about it until you mentioned it above. At this point I wouldn't lose any sleep over it at all since it seems to be used by so many people successfully with monarchs for years. But monarchs are not as easy to rear for me and I think they are susceptible to so many forms of predation that I often leave them outside when I find them because I hate to see things die. But if there is truth to the allegations about native vs. non-native I would definitely like to know. I grow two species of native milkweed but to be honest with you they are a real pain because they appear too late for the spring migration and often go dormant before the fall migration. So what good is that. So I just have at least five or so species and let the adult butterflies pick out their own choice. They definitely choose the physocarpa and curassavica over any of the others. As far as the notion that A. tuberosa might be invasive out here in CA, I seriously doubt it because tuberosa likes rich and well-drained soil and the only place you would find that out here is in bags at the local nursery and it's quite expensive. I doubt most tuberosas could afford it. On top of that tuberosa does not do well in pots or so the mail order catalog indicates. At least it never worked for me.

Try reviewing the Butterfly Gardening forum FAQ for topics like OE and black chrysalides, and/or post your question on that forum, it is commonly discussed there. I'm not sure that Monarch eggs/larvae infected with OE can even get to adult stage, but normal adults can carry and spread OE.