Here in southeast Texas, I think we need a variety of milkweed. Monarch Watch sent plug of antelope horns as the suggested native for this area last year, but the season for that one seems to be too late and too short to support the migration here. I am growing it and sharing it to spread, but I am also growing other types. I do cut back the tropical at the end of the season. Defining the endd of the season is not easy -- it keeps budding out again as long as we have warm weather -- and we really did this past winter. With three days of hard freeze. Really hard on all the plants this year.

Excellent post, Mary.

I have several types of milkweed growing. As I am watching the first butterflies of the season, they seem to be preferring the tropical, and it is the only one blooming for nectar. Nearly all of the eggs laid so far have been on the tropical. I do cut back -- and this year a hard freeze took everything down to the roots.

Update: The tropical milkweed was the first to have eggs laid on it, but I am suddenly finding eggs on nearly every plant larger than a seedling -- several types of milkweed.

Oh my, this is good news and bad news. Good that eggs are being laid but bad news that too many eggs are being left on each plant.

At least Texas is trying to help by setting aside areas in some highway rest stops along the flyway where milkweed and nectar plants are being planted. Wish more states throughout the flyway would consider leaving small sections of the highway shoulders un-mowed every mile or two, so milkweed could be grown for the Monarch migrations.

Mary

The practice of providing milkweed/nectar along the highways has been implemented in Oklahoma also. Mowing has decreased and is scheduled after seeds mature. Signs are being installed to let people know that the areas are Monarch/pollinator habitats.

How wonderful! So proud of Oklahoma. Thank you for letting us know.

I am having more eggs deposited every day. I know there are hundreds and I don't have enough milkweed to support them. DH and I bought some more 4 " pots and put them into gallon pots this weekend, but that won't be enough -- and they will just get more eggs. My seedlings and volunteers are still tiny. I will be the idiot you see on the news running around the yard shooing away butterflies.

Clearly, you folks in Texas are crucial to the beginning of the entire Monarch migration cycle. I have lived in Michigan, and recently moved to Minnesota, where we are thrilled to have one or possibly two Monarchs visit and lay eggs in a season. In MI, I had tons of milkweed plants that were never touched by a Monarch. And there were fields full of milkweed that I searched diligently, only to find nary an egg or caterpillar. So, we are dependent on you Texas gardeners to support whatever Monarchs you can, so they can reproduce and send offspring north and east to continue the cycle. I have seeds I could send to help increase the supply of milkweed down there, if anyone has room. Just let me know where, and I'll drop seeds in the mail.

Martha

Martha, I had planned to start earlier, but I am determined to make seed bombs with milkweed and other pollinator seeds to toss along the roadways and pathways. I think it is crucial to spread the milkweed out. No matter how much I have in one place, they need to find more along their way. I think They have a project to grow milkweed along I-35 from Austin to Oklahoma, but I'm over in the Houston area and I'd like to see them do the same u to Dallas north. I think the city of Conroe about 30 miles north of Houston) planted a bunch of milkweed last year. That's a start.

Milkweed guerrillas! Spreading seed bombs along the roadways and pathways. Love it!

Project along I-35 will go all the way up to the US-Canada border!

I am really confused about this issue as well. All I know is that a couple of years ago, I planted "tropical" milkweed and the "hardy" swamp milkweed (I live in NJ/zone 7a). Well, the Swamp Milkweed seemed to do nothing in terms of growth (assuming it's still alive). Meantime, to my great surprise, the tropical milkweed comes back each season (IN GREAT ABUNDANCE) from overwintered seeds I guess. In fact, I would even say it is somewhat weedy. But I love the flower colors and hope it helps the butterflies more than the less robust Swamp Milkweed. They do die to the ground with a heavy frost though. I thought I recall reading that the tropical species is okay as long as they do not prevent the butterflies from migrating south. I forget when these things stop blooming (but must be into October) and by November, I have pulled them, but their seeds certainly are resilient and tenacious!

Tropical is "badder" than other milkweed when it comes to OE because of two factors. First, research has shown that OE infected females prefer laying eggs on tropical milkweed versus other species of milkweed. And the fact that they are using it leads to the second problem: Tropical milkweed helps monarchs infected with OE and that leads to spreading more OE around. Tropical milkweed gives monarchs more tolerance to OE. Versus eating other species of milkweed, more OE infected monarchs will make it to adulthood and once they are butterflies, they will live longer which helps them spread the OE.

People talk about cutting tropical milkweed back at the end of the season to limit problems. That is an option when it is in the yard of somebody who is going to do it. But when it escapes that yard or the gardener moves, who is cutting it back then?

Since you're in Michigan, the biggest reason not to grow it is because it screws with the migration. I never had November monarchs until I had tropical milkweed. One of the migration triggers is what kind of shape the leaves are in when the caterpillar is eating them. Tropical milkweed leaves stay in great shape until the first frost so monarchs that should be in sexual diapause and heading south are instead staying up north and starting another generation that won't make it south because it will be too cold.

About your butterflyweed, I never got monarchs on it either, until .... One year I had milkweed tigers strip most of it. Then the butterflyweed pushed out new growth. Then I had monarchs on it! Mama monarchs prefer new/fresh leaves for their eggs. Butterflyweed is usually the first milkweed up so it has the oldest leaves. Experiment with pruning the leaves off of some in late June/early July.

KC, I will definitely try to prune back the butterfly weed this year...I've read conflicting reports on if tropical mw in fact does mess with migration or not. I have a extremely knowledgeable local resource that says there is no research that shows that having tropical mw in northern climates negatively effects monarch migration..She's actually the author of the book Butterfly Gardening...But I have planted a bunch of other native types last fall, so we will see what happens this summer...Does common and or showy mw flower their first year?

Thanks for all the advice!!

guinis,
As soon as you said SE MI, I figured one person would end up being in this conversation. I have every confidence that if there were research papers on how tropical mw adversely affected Michigan monarchs, she would ignore them. That is pretty much what is happening with people like her and all the research about how tropical mw is screwing things up in the southern US. I doubt you'll see research on northern tropical mw anytime soon since it is currently a problem that exists only because of monarch enthusiasts while tropical milkweed has naturalized along the southeast and southern coasts.

Monarch Lab did do a paper that showed tropical milkweed monarchs have smaller wingspans. Their hypothesis was those monarchs were less likely to make it to Mexico because of the shorter wings but they were not going to research it.

Normally common flowers the second year. I have no experience with showy. It is not native to Ohio so I have not played with it. In our part of the country, wild showy is only found in a three small areas along Lake Michigan.

Good luck with the poke. I've tried a few times in a few spots but no joy. Did finally get some to come back on its own last year but they never got taller than 4", which is basically what they did in 2015. My whorled did not do much for a few years but really took off the last two years. Spreading out into my lawn. Don't find a lot of monarchs on it. I wonder if that is because the caterpillars are easy to see on it for me and predators.

Swinging back to OE, swamp is probably the best milkweed out there. A lot of the OE infected caterpillars never make it to adulthood while the ones that do have the shortest life expectancy. OTOH, if there is no OE, non-migrating monarchs raised on it have the longest life expectancy.

http://akdavis6.wixsite.com/monarchscience

http://www.tropicalmilkweed.com

I have been lucky enough to have great success germinating native varieties of milkweed via wintersowing. So, my Michigan garden was full of perennial native milkweed plants. I always try to use primarily native plants, or choose non-natives that cannot spread in my area, like zinnias and Mexican sunflowers for nectar.

Martha