You never know what will pop up. CM tends to travel in odd drections. Are you going to leave it or try to bareroot it somewhere else?

There are eggs and little caterpillars on a lot of them, so I will leave them alone for now. I am going to try to relocate some after they are done. Any tips are appreciated. I have just a 50 percent success rate transplanting them. Even with a spade and trying to carefully trace which way the roots are going.

Iris,

You would be better off planting new plants than trying to transplant Common Milkweed. I have lots of seed, if you want to try to start new plants.

Martha

I counted 28 coming up this year. I was quite surprised.

Martha,

thank you so much for the offer. I am probably going to have seeds. There are just so many going out of the border and all over the place that they can’t stay where they are for next year. I would hate to just rip them out and waste them. I currently have about 40 caterpillars on them and new eggs daily (most ever this early). So I thought about trying to transplant them next to my brush pile in late Fall.

Gardenfullofswallotails,

this is great news! Any caterpillars, yet?

They are just emerging from out of the ground.

Just found a picture from May 2016. If you counted 28 coming up, you can imagine what mine looks like now. A bit behind with the height this year though.

I'm sure they have doubled. They travel in packs, but they are very worth it!

My snow finally melted. Im waiting to see what comes up. I spread on of those native seed mixes and hopefully some stuff will grow.

I checked again today, and looks like a few more popped up. Its filling in nicely.

The bare rooted one that survive two years ago didn't do much last year and I think that's because it wasn't getting much sunlight at all. It did get leaves, but zero flowers. It had one stem. At the moment, I thought it was dead, but the little critter came back with a vengeance and has several shoots coming out in several directions. She's really trying to get into the sunlight. She's mad at me I think for placing her in not enough light.

That’s funny. Mine are getting flower buds now. About 2 weeks later than last year.

I've had to cut some of the leaves because I saw black spot. This rain we've had is a gift and curse. Too much yellowing. Why can't all plants be moisture lovers haha!

They look great. I'm going to get some seeds and try planting some. I have the Tropical milkweed, Giant Milkweed, and the Swan Milkweed. I don't have as much as I want to yet, not like last year. I haven't had too many this year, not like last year, not even on my passion vines.

Anybody have a few hundred ladybugs to spare? Haha. The green aphids have found them. I've used water to get rid of them. I planted some Dill, and I have a Bronze fennel in hopes to get them to come by and clean house haha.

Over the past several months, I think I've spotted ladybugs only twice -- and if it's the same one, then that counts as one ladybug. :/ We have quite a number (and variety) of wasps always buzzing about, so I'm hoping they'll keep the aphids under control and leave my caterpillars alone.

I only just purchased dill and Florence fennel for swallowtails -- do dill and fennel attract ladybugs? Also, do you let your dill and fennel flower? Thanks.

I would like to say, that thanks to all the rain we had, my Giant Milkweed look awesome!!!!! I think this one is actually going to last. The leaves are huge, and it has lots of branches. The family jewels is flowering and it's about 3', and all the Tropical milkweed are flowering.

I will say this has been a bad year for most of my common milkweed. I think due to a drainage problem and deficiency issue, they did not perform like I thought. Kind of disappointed,. This fall I plan to fix the clay issues going on.

Gardenfullofswallotails,

Maybe you could try Swamp Mikweed, Asclepius incarnate. It prefers a more moist habitat, and my Monarchs have always preferred it for egg-laying.

Martha