Milkweed
Why Plant Milkweed?
Milkweed is the ONLY thing that Female Monarchs lay their 🥚eggs on. Milkweed is the ONLY thing that Monarch 🐛Larva (caterpillar’s) eat.
YOU can do a few things that WILL make a difference, #1 is PLANT MILKWEED!
Milkweed is not only essential for the Monarch Life Cycle, but it also is a great resource for ALL pollinators, all nectar loving butterflies🦋, many species of Bees🐝 & Hummingbirds to mention a few.
A lot of us have been growing Milkweed in the hopes of slowing or stopping the collapse of the Western Monarch Butterfly. We have learned how to identify 🥚eggs & 🐛larva from the Monarch on our milkweed, then we put screen material around the plant to protect the eggs & 🐛larva from predators. The caterpillars when the emerge start out by eating the egg shell. After that they start eating the milkweed. To keep the caterpillars well fed you have to occasionally supplement the milkweed. To keep the milkweed fresh longer here is a very easy way as documented by Raul L.
Once the monarchs emerge from their chrysalis, we would let them fly* to continue their migration. (This is called Captive Raise & Release).
*Before releasing them, We check them to see if they are carrying the Oe Parasite, we only want to release healthy Monarchs, otherwise they will infect others.
Milkweed harbors the Oe spores, Native Milkweed dies back during Fall/Winter which kills the Oe Spores, Non-native milkweed does not die back, therefore those milkweed plants (that are infected) will continue to infect more monarchs. To help prevent the spread of Oe, it is critically important that we cut back our non-native milkweed to 6” above the ground (It’s OK to leave a few of the topmost leaves on), around Halloween Weekend at the latest.