That happened to me this summer(for the first time) and they

Are still on my plants,but not as many. These aphids are nightmares!

I tried the hose treatment because my plants are strong,and it helped

But still much damage was done. I have not put any kind of poison

Or sprays on due to concern for the butterflies & hummingbirds.

I am hoping for some sort of solution!

DD

Best solution I've come up with are lots of ladybug and ladybug lions. I see them frequently munching on the aphids.

Welcome to the club. I just resign myself. I hose off the leaves/branches I cut for the butterflies I'm raising and let the others be. I've decided it's better for me to start new plants from seed anyway, since the first-year plants attract more ELFs. Those older plants don't get many eggs.

Liz, that's a great way to look at it. And, that way you are always planting more milkweed.

This happened to me from some nursery bought plants. Monarch cats ate all my yard milkweed, so in desperation to save some, I went to a nursery to get some more incarnata. I reared the cats on the nursery plants INDOORS which resulted in many many more aphids. My thumb could not keep up with them! But at least refraining from poisons rewarded me with this:

I vow to cultivate enough milkweed to share with the aphids AND butterflies soon.

Pointy roof, nice picture! Of course the aphid eggs were already on the plant before you bought it. Maybe you could start some milkweed in pots inside, or under a cover to keep the aphids off. Then you'd have some "clean" plants to raise your cats on. I did that for the first time this year, and it worked like a charm....except that I had 50+ caterpillars, so not nearly enough milkweed. But, my potted collection is growing. Keep up the good work.

Yes docmom, I was digging up and bringing inside immature plants for them to eat, but it was not until I brought home the nursery plants (full of aphid eggs) that the aphids were everywhere. One thing I worry about aside from still having more cats than milkweed is when they reach adulthood my yard probably does not have enough nectar flowers for them, and neither do my neighbors' yards. I don't see myself with a big butterfly cage providing watermelon etc. I am posting on my neighborhood forum to see if anyone is hiding a big flower garden somewhere because they sure don't have much out front. We are in a mature wooded area, so prairie gardens are not likely.

Pontyrogof, sorry about the horrible autocorrect on your name.

Martha

docmom, even if you meant it, especially if you meant it, it was hilarious!

So far my thinking is that the best approach is to leave the aphids alone and let nature work its course. It got pretty ugly this year. Here's my swamp milkweed on August 14:

Already at that point many of the aphids had been killed off by predators (ladybugs for sure, I'm guessing also predatory flies and/or wasps), and within another week or so all the aphids were gone. A big rain came and washed all the mess away for me. Here are the same milkweeds today, with one of the five monarchs feeding on them this morning:

I've got four plants in a rain garden that I put in this spring as nursery seedlings.

Woodstea, I keep waiting for my ladybugs to come to the rescue but they haven't yet. I am still leaving them though. I just spray all the milkweed I bring inside with the sprayer in the sink before I give it to the cats so I don't have them inside.

I usually leave the oleander aphids alone. The monarchs as they fly by can smell them and when I raise the cats, I give them those leaves because it is suppose to add to the bad taste for birds. If they are over powering the plants then hose them off. This spring I noticed lady bugs in March which is very early and they have kept the aphids under control. I have 8 or 10 varieties of milkweed and over the summer the eggs and tiny cats have moved to the ones nearest to blooming.

Well,everybody's monarch Picts are pretty,and I hope to see one

Too,since it is still a long time before the weather turns cold here.

I would be happy to see one just passing thru that dropped down

Into the valley from the ridge.

DD

I finally saw a lady bug yesterday on my milkweed - hope more are on their way.

In the course of about 10 day my milkweed stands out front got covered with aphids, so I got "creative". I dug out my tall Tupperware pasta keeper and put a really big squeeze of dish soap in it. Then I filled it with warm water.

I went outside and carefully bent the stalks down and stuck them as far as I could into the warm soapy water. I swished them around, sort of like the plant was a bottle brush. Then I pulled the stalk out and moved on to the next. I did have to add more water at one point. When I was done, I let it all sit for 30 minutes and then I came back and rinsed all the soap off. The aphids were all dead! I did one big stand yesterday and another 2 today. Today when I looked, there were no aphids on the plants I treated yesterday.

fingers crossed!

What kind of soap did you use? thanks.