I find it funny that I’ve had so much trouble getting a patch of weeds, I mean milkweed, to take. Part of the difficulty is that when autumn comes milkweed gets hit by the ugly stick, and I really don’t want to look at it all the time. I kept trying to find out-of-the-way places to plant it. Another issue was that when I started all this, I had no clue what I was doing, and I added a bunch of Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata), which turns out is not my favorite. I also made a bunch of other rookie mistakes that make me cringe now when I watch that video and remember how we did things. Please, please don’t get milkweed from your garden center like I did! Somehow I lucked out and I didn’t kill any caterpillars, but definitely take that as a lesson of What Not To Do.
All I can do now is move forward and “do my best with the information that I have.” I heard that somewhere and I think it is sound advice; you really can’t crucify yourself for mistakes you made in the past. You can’t know what you don’t know (more good advice), and I was clearly so proud of the milkweed we got from the garden center. I’m just glad that it didn’t end in disaster!
Anyway, last year I put this ring around our light pole, and this year we finally got it filled up with dirt. I guess next year I’ll finally get some plants in there! But right now, peeking through the out-of-control grass and weeds, you can finally, just barely, see my patch of Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca). If you’re having trouble locating it: look to either side of the light pole). There’s actually quite a bit in there, but it’s hidden in those heinous weeds.
So, what do Monarch Enthusiasts do all winter? Of course, some areas have butterflies all year round, but up in the northern portion of the United States, I said good-bye to my monarchs in October when the temperatures started dipping below 50-55 degrees.
As for winter butterfly activities, I’ll be honest, there isn’t much. I cleaned out our big enclosure and stored it, and cut down the milkweed in my garden.
>I am going to go on a tangent for a moment here because this is something I’m very passionate about. It is so incredibly important to cut back your milkweed, especially in the south where there is no winter die-off. Cutting back your milkweed is a way to control O.E. (you’ll start fresh with new growth), and it also to forces the butterflies to continue their journey all the way to Mexico. More and more monarchs are cutting their migration short, which not only disrupts the natural order of things, but it creates a cesspool of O.E. with no natural means of controlling it: “Across years, infection frequency was five to nine times higher among non-migratory (winter-breeding) monarchs compared with migratory monarchs sampled in Mexico or at coastal overwintering sites.” (Satterfield DA, Maerz JC, Altizer S. 2015 Loss of migratory behaviour increases infection risk for a butterfly host. Proc. R. Soc. B 282: 20141734. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2014.1734)
Okay, stepping down off my soapbox. As winter settled in, I started thinking about and planning for next year. Here’s a snippet of my pro/con list about the enclosure we made, which will hopefully get you thinking too:
✔️ Large enclosure housed many caterpillars at once ✔️ Door for easy access ✔️ Tall; plenty of space for potted plants
❌ Wood is difficult to clean/sanitize ❌ Sick butterflies have a long way to fall ❌ Had trouble with the latches ❌ No table for work space
My husband is a woodworker, so he can build pretty much anything I dream up. We will be posting the completed plans for purchase here when they are finished.
In addition to dreaming up your plans for next year, there is one more thing you can do: winter sowing!
I began collecting seeds at the end of the season, when all the milkweed pods began opening. This is what I did to score seeds for little or no money:
>If you’re not on Facebook, please join. The number of support groups out there is beyond comprehension, including many for monarch enthusiasts. There are even groups that are dedicated to people who want to share seeds, or for sharing milkweed! Type “monarch” into the search bar, and you’ll be well on your way to all the support you could ever need. Most of the seeds I got were from kindhearted strangers in Facebookland. For the price of a SASE, you can get more than enough seeds for the next season.
>I drove around my area and looked out my car window. Now, hold up! Before you grab your keys, let me just state firmly: I do not condone stealing milkweed plants or seeds from yards!! You could get yourself in big trouble, either with the homeowner, or law enforcement. Nor do I think it’s a good idea to take milkweed from the side of the road, even if it doesn’t seem to be on anyone’s personal property. It’s possible that it has been treated with pesticides or other chemicals by the city that maintains that road. But if you keep your eyes peeled while out and about, you’ll probably discover there is milkweed to be had for free in the most unlikely of places. I live in a rural area, and there were two businesses with patches of milkweed on the side of their parking lot. When I saw the pods were getting ready to open, I stopped in and asked the business owner if it would be okay for me to take one or two of the pods. They were happy to help and wished us luck on our butterfly journey.
If you have your heart set on one of the less common varieties of milkweed, you may need to purchase your seeds online. Joyful Butterfly and Monarch Watch both have online stores.
Once you have secured your supply of seeds, there is a lovely and detailed tutorial on Monarch Butterfly Garden‘s website about winter sowing. Part 1 talks about the supplies you’ll need beforehand and how to get set up, and Part 2 goes through step-by-step what to do.
>Reminder: in addition to those awesome directions, remember to get yourself some potting soil before all the garden centers close down for the season.
Another note: however many containers you think you need, triple it. I thought I was sitting pretty with eight, but boy was that a gross miscalculation on my part. I have four envelopes of common milkweed seeds, plus a few other varieties, and my measly eight jugs was not enough for even one packet.
Copyright KEHC Photography, 2019
I’m just telling myself that I did this on purpose so I could set mine out in batches. Stay tuned for updates on our progress!
If you’re drowning in a sea of milkweed, or stumped on the selection of plants for your garden, or concerned about if you’re planting native or non-native plants, then this is going to be a good place for you to start. It can all get overwhelming because there are over a hundred varieties of milkweed out there, many of which have multiple or overlapping names. But fortunately for you, you’ll only need to keep track of a handful. And this is how you do it:
Go by the Latin name only.
I’m serious. I know there are very few Latin-speakers out there, and I’m certainly not one of them, but let me show you a little trick. I’m going to list out the milkweed plants that are considered native to my area:
Are you seeing a trend? That’s right . . . in Latin, all true milkweed will begin with the word asclepias. There are so many nicknames out there, it’s impossible to keep them all straight. Here are some examples:
Tropical Milkweed
Mexican Milkweed
Scarlet Milkweed
Mexican Butterfly Weed
And guess what? Every single one of those is considered Asclepiascurassavica, and here’s another fun fact: Asclepias curassavica is not even native to the continental United States! And, ready for another one? Asclepias syriaca is also called Butterfly Flower, and that is native in the United States.
Both images from Wikipedia
Until you get your feet wet, don’t even look at the nickname. Check out this great resource from Monarch Joint Venture. They have the country broken down by region, and a handful of milkweed varieties that are native to that area. If you need something a little more precise, here is another resource from BONAP that is very detailed.
>Tip: Try to avoid using your garden center for your information. I am not trying to sound snobby, but it’s just a fact that unless the person in your garden center is also raising monarchs, then it’s unreasonable to expect him or her to know the differences between the different milkweeds. I believe that they are giving us information in good faith, but just as we have trouble keeping the milkweed varieties straight, so do they. Please, do your own research. There are some gorgeous creatures that are depending on us!
One last thing: native vs. non-native plants.
Of course, it’s your choice on whether or not you actually plant native plants in your garden, and you are NOT a bad person if you choose to plant some Asclepias curassavica to help attract some monarchs. It works like a charm, so definitely go for it!! However, what you may not realize is it is very important to cut it back in winter. And why? It doesn’t die off in the southern part of the United States, and like a bad game of Dominoes, the chain reaction is that Monarchs have been cutting their migration short and getting “stuck” there with all the non-native milkweed. Then, when they don’t go all the way to their overwintering sites, it causes a cesspool of OE… Cutting back your Asclepias curassavica and keeping it cut back until spring will encourage butterflies to keep migrating, and it helps with OE because you’ll start fresh in the spring with new growth. Please, whatever you choose for your beautiful garden, do your due diligence for any non-native plant because it can have far-reaching effects on the ecosystem.
Holy cow… They won’t stop eating, eating, eating! Overnight our caterpillars have grown up, and now they’re really destructive (in a good way, of course. I did purchase the milkweed for them, after all). But goodness gracious, we can’t keep up with them! They’ve stripped our milkweed plants nearly bare. I had to call around but finally found a garden center with some milkweed, so we went today and picked some up. Watch the video for a little tour around our garden and some information about milkweed.
An update on our cats. Copyright KEHC Photography, 2019
Wow! After the kids went to bed, I went outside to deadhead in our butterfly garden, and discovered that we have a plethora of monarch caterpillars!
Monarch caterpillar feasting on milkweed in our garden, August 2019
Of course this was the goal all along, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise. But, I’ve only seen one or two monarchs hanging around our garden in the past few weeks, and none of us have noticed any eggs, so turns out it was a surprise! And a wonderful surprise at that.
Even though we already raised and released two batches of Painted Lady butterflies, that experience just whet our appetites for something More. The kids truly do want to save the monarchs, save the world, and I want to do everything in my power to encourage them and help them do it. We weren’t expecting our garden to take off so spectacularly this first year, but we’re not sorry either. It was that wonderful day in August when I found the first monarch caterpillars in our small butterfly garden that our journey truly began.
Still holding my clippers, I smiled at that caterpillar and said, “Welcome!” Both of my kids and I like to greet the creatures that visit our garden, and when I leaned down to snap a picture, I spied another one. Amazing, two caterpillars?! I was thrilled, and couldn’t wait to show the kids in the morning. How naive I was.
Beaming with pride to see the fruits of our labors so quickly, I rushed inside and spooked my husband because he thought something was wrong. “Two monarch caterpillars!” I exclaimed. I ran back out to watch them for a while and finish my deadheading. I felt like a new mama!
Wait, is that another caterpillar? After seeing the first two, I started noticing more and more and more until I had to take a video because we had eleven of them in our small garden! Little did we know, eleven caterpillars were just the tip of the milkweed-berg.
Right away, I started looking online for information. I was not disappointed. My favorite websites are listed in my Resources tab. Some reputable, some not. As voracious as the caterpillars are just outside my house, I have been gobbling up as much information as I can find. Stay tuned for a “What can you do” type of post. There is a lot we can all do, and it doesn’t even require a lot of work or expense.
It didn’t take long for me to figure out that we were going to need to intervene if we want to help out these magnificent creatures, but as they seemed to be thriving in our garden, I decided I’d keep researching and figure out the best way to help.
Simply Sunlight 