It is quite possible a small animal would do this.

I can only relate my experience but I think we have a local woods rat in our neighborhood that began visiting our deck when we kept full bird feeders out throughout the year (no more). We live in a city, too. And I believe this little nocturnal visitor has eaten some of my plants down to stubs, including potted and in ground milkweed. This is the only animal I can think of that would eat a young, green plant overnight in this manner. The plants are eaten, not just chopped off. There is no plant material scattered around. I had a wild phlox potted and sitting on my potting bench on the deck and something actually ate it down this spring, overnight, to nothing but a bit of green stem hugging the soil. Last year I had a young milkweed with first flower heads forming, sitting on the potting bench, that had it's top eaten down to just a stub overnight. This behavior is usually noticed during the spring. Maybe with so little growing, they are seeking food. Whatever it is, it has never entered my greenhouse but it has certainly visited my garden beds and my deck. We also have opossums and raccoons in the neighborhood, so I guess it's possible one of them has done the damage but I lean toward the woods rat. Nothing seems to be out of place, other than the missing green plant parts! :-)

Mary

I had the same experience and I'm in CA as well. The creature is only eating the young foliage around the top. I was wondering why my plants, that my 1st generation of monarchs ate, were not growing back. Its seems all the new growth is being eaten. I'm going to move my plants to the roof deck. If they are still getting eaten I'll know its a rat as the possums never climb that high

I am having the same issue and also in Ca. just nip it off like it was cut, so far milkweed and new leaves on basil. Moved 2 milkweeds to balcony, no problem , so am thinking rat!!! Am going to try peppermint oil on cotton balls and also Shake away rodent repellent which is a peppermint base. Hopefully they will hate it . Will let you know.

I have the same problem this year. I’m in FL. I’ve always set my milkweed plants in the garden in pots so I can move them around if needed

by the catipillers in a different location. I went out one morning and they had all been snipped off at the stalk. I moved them to the picnic table and came out the next morning and the stalks were almost gone. That’s when we set

up an outdoor weather proof camera. Toll the card out the next morning and it was a palm rat. Moved the plants to the front of the house and they are recovering.

How do we get rid of the rats and not harm anything else?

We have a very rare Asclepias species here in Illinois called Asclepias lanuginosa. It's so rare and endangered that it's impossible to find seeds or plants of it to grow it. I was watching some videos about these milkweeds on youtube and one showed a whole protected area of the lanuginosas that had been totally devasted by ground squirells, or was it woodchucks, I can't remember lol. So, yeah, rodents can do enough damage to actually speed up extinctions! Sorry, I don't know of any good ways to get rid of palm rats.

I raise monarchs and have a lot of milkweed. Nothing has ever bothered it. This year the deer were biting the tops off. Groundhogs are pulling down the stalk, breaking them and chewing off leaves. I tried soap, garlic, pepper, cat hair. Nothing

I live in the Brentwood area of LA and have been very successful with Monarchs. All ten of my mature, leafy milkweed plants were eaten over a weekend! My home camera does not completely cover the area in which they are planted, if it where a deer, rabbit, etc... they typically trip the cameras. I now suspect it was a rat. Darn! There was a lone Monarch that recently laid eggs that I had been watching closely. Rats!!!!!

I live in very urban central houston TX. i have over a hundred square feet of various milkweed s planted in both 10-20 gallon containers and ground. i was wondering why my leaves started disappearing on them so suddenly, much faster than could be accounted for by the few and then no monarch (or any other) caterpillars.

i came back from an early morning dog walking session while it was still dark, but was startled to see a small rat hanging on a large, tall and muchly bent tropical milkweed stalk. it let go and ran off before i could let my dog off leash to go after it. I thought that the plants were toxic to everything but monarch caterpillars, so didn't worry much and soon forgot about the sighting..

But, within a week or two, there was not a single leaf left on any of my plants. and I've since spotted several of the tree/Norway rats around the apartment bldg and next door houses. I now believe that not so coincidentally, I just learned that the lady two doors down lost her 4 outdoor cats that used to wander around here after dark.

it wasnt until Googling the subject that i found this thread and confirmed my suspicion that rats can and do apparently greatly relish milweed leaves ans flowers. They seem to not care for the stems, though…