This is the most activity I had with my milkweeds. My poor little milkweeds got chewed down! That's that point isn't it? My 1st year plants haven't flowered and I guess that means I won't have seed pods either. Katie - This is a great project and very helpful to newbies. Thank you for your efforts to help the monarch butterfly!

I, FINALLY, have some sprouts in my milkweed jugs. I had almost given up hope. My arborist showed up yesterday and we fell a bunch of trees to allow more sunlight for my gardens. Unfortunately where some of these trees had to fall was where a large part of my milkweed garden was going to go. It is unlikely I will have time to get it all cleaned up this year, So I have extra milkweed seedlings that I would also be happy to ship to fellow canucks (sorry with rules etc too hard to ship to USA) or I will scramble and find a place to plant them. Bring on butterfly season!!! SCG

In our community gardens, a wide variety of milkweeds are offered to the Monarchs. Every year they are covered with cats during different times of the year. It's very common to find a chrysalis hanging from a garden border 2x6 or from horizontal vine supports or any number of different plant stems. It is extremely rare to find any of them on the host plants though, as the little cats seem to want to wander off to do their magic. I'm sure there are predations, but I've photographed any of the beautiful little encasinga and even had the privilege of watching the last instar unzip into the bright green chrysalis. Up until that point I wasn't sure exactly how it happened and it was amazing and surprisingly quick! It takes me a bit of searching to find them at this point because they are so well camouflaged.

Full sun for sure is best. I would say that a field that is never mowed might present a problem for the light weight seeds to get down the the damp soil where they need to be to germinate. I have not deliberately grown any from seed, but have had many sprout where they darn well please. I do find that the A. incarnata, spreads itself around much better than A. tuberosa. Incarnata or 'swamp milkweed' likes a moister situation too, which I have. Send off an email through Garden Web if you would like some seeds. I have a lot more incarnata, the pink one, than tuberosa, the orange. But only on pod would yield several dozens seeds, so I think I will be able to accommodate all who want some.