We are gradually transitioning to native milkweed here in California. I just bought a ton of plants since our nurseries have many varieties of native milkweed. We still have tropical milkweed in the yard, but cut it down to the ground every October to prevent any problems. I think it's still fine to grow as long as you make sure to cut it down late summer/early fall.
We grow butterfly milkweed and swamp milkweed here in Indianapolis and get lots of Monarch cats. But we find we need to bring them inside in a habitat to survive the local predators and become butterflies.
You are actually doing more harm by doing that. Not every monarch is going to survive, even in the wild under the best conditions. Its the way of the world. By raising them, or playing Mother Nature, you are actually introducing them to other issues and ultimately killing or harming them. It may bother some but, let Mother Nature do her thing. There are so many ques in the wild that help ANY butterfly along in growth and eclosing. When to leave, when to mate, etc that they cant get indoors. Temperatures, sun angle in the sky, wind shifts, to name a few. I understand it makes you feel like you havea purpose but, in all reality, youre harming them. Let the praying matids have a few, let the spiders have one or 2...birds...wasps, etc. Its the way of the world and the circle of life.
Nothing wrong with growing A. curassavica if one practices good stewardship by hard pruning of plants in fall/early winter to mimic dormancy found in our native milkweeds. If one doesn't prune, then yes, one shouldn't plant.
best practise is to plant native. You know you do no harm when planting native but just in case you are wrong about planting tropical....are you willing to be destroying what you week trying to save....
@@ishaan5183 yup that's the answer because if we cut the stems where the last caterpillar where to. cut the stems to the ground and there will no be no OE parasite. we can keep tropical milkweed, it's good. But in winter cut it's stems all the way to the ground so the monarch's could not find the plant and skip migration because they travel to find milkweed because the native milkweed here dies but if they are infected they will find tropical milkweed and spread the disease because if the caterpillar eats the virus and succesfully emerges as a adult it will spread the disease to a lot of monarchs, you will need to cut it all the way down so that healthy monarchs could not get infected by the plant and die. and same for the caterpillars, if everyone does not cut tropical milkweed we will sadly extinct them.
Thanks for your thread, I’m in the Houston area where Mexican Milkweed IS native. My milkweed has gotten extremely long and lanky, so I wanted to know if I could cut it back without killing it. After watching this video I now have more reasons than one to trim them short. I inherited this monarch sanctuary from the former homeowner.
@@whatwhat8524 well, that is for Florida, and I’m sorry to say I don’t live in Florida so I don’t know what’s happening there, but in California and places like that our native milkweeds go dormant
I would just like to point out that in some parts of the world, such as the Canary Islands, there are no endemic milkweeds and Monarchs have only been able to colonise the islands because Tropical Milkweed was planted long ago in gardens. Because the temperatures in coastal areas remain warm enough all year around the butterflies do not migrate. The same situation applies in mainland Spain and Portugal. There are two types of Monarch: migratory and non-migratory. The ones in the migratory populations have a much longer lifespan for the generation that lives through the late fall and winter months. Permanent population butterflies have shorter lives but breed all through the year.
Increases in average daily dew point in the US is also reducing the urge to migrate to Central America, though herbicide use and runoff are bigger issues here.
@@bluepvp900, it appears that migration is an adaptation that evolved to deal with circumstances but is not a necessity for the insect's survival, and so around the world there are many resident populations and some migrtatory ones too. In Australia and New Zealand, I understand there are migratory Monarchs, as well as those in America.
@@bardofely I didn't really think it through from that perspective. That makes it an incredibly interesting adaptation, when certain factors exist (temperature or dewpoint here) migration behavior is more likely to be triggered or not to be. Evolution is amazing, adaptations are more complex that I realized, and it's awe inspiring to me. I love it, and will be planting milkweed and other helpful native plants in my garden as soon as they show up in the mail.
@@bluepvp900, yes, most people think of Monarchs as only being in the US but there are many populations in many other countries, and it seems this butterfly will colonise a new area, as long as its foodplants grow there. It can adapt too to changing temperatures. Look at this site about Monarchs in New Zealand: www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/511-monarch-butterflies
@@bardofely Right, however it does provide an advantage through certain periods, otherwise it would not be inherited. Evolution doesn't really create behaviors, the situations existing in the world are the way they are and particular adaptations allow for higher chances of survival. With enough events and occurrences statistically these individual events and adaptations result in favored genetics. It makes perfect sense. When it doesn't seem to make sense, expect that we are looking at things wrong...I start with checking my assumptions when this happens lol.
I’m a snow bird from Philly living in Clearwater Florida from Jan to mid April. I bought 5 tropical plants last year and when I came back in Jan I had 36 cats on my plants. I bought 4 more and they ate the leaves and half the stalks. I brought them to the sunny side of site and they came back after a month and got more cats and they ate them down. But when they go to cocoon I don’t see 36 cocoons but around 5. So somewhere they aren’t making it to the cocoon stage. So I got a little terrarium and have 3 cocooned now. That really seems the best success rate! When would these cats go north from central Florida? Now I have more kids to take care of !
I also live in Florida and tropical milkweed is just a part of our environment. We have a population of non-migratory Monarchs. You'll find that wasps will eat a lot of caterpillars. People's hair is on fire for some reason about tropical milkweed but don't worry about it. The disease OE is around because Monarchs have lost so much habitat they congregate more on a limited amount of milkweed. Just like humans, if people crowed to much, disease follows. Do your thing and plant tropical milkweed if you want. Use butterfly covers you can buy on Amazon to protect them from wasps and every one will go to cocoon.
@@dhill7173 so now I have around 14 plants and their all stubs ! I got a tent to insure the wasps and geckos don’t get them . I had 11 butterflies so far and have 18 crytalist waiting ! You can’t have enough milkweed plants !
The lack of native milkweed species is no longer an issue. The USGS and Fish and Wildlife departments began producing millions of plants with various nurseries to work towards a goal of planting over 1.3 billion milkweed plants. They are asking every farmer and individual to help by planting as much as possible, as well. Several sources exist that provide either free or very low cost seeds to anyone interested. $3 for 150 seeds from one source, for example, with several options regarding particular variety including one where they choose the best plants for your location.
Nectar sources are also needed. Nectar fuels the migration coming and going. Plant for all seasons. Monarchs need nectar in the spring just like they need it in the fall. They do put on lipids/fats as they migrate in the fall, but the Mexico reserves are filled with flowers and on warm days they are out taking water to digest those fats and also nectaring. Aster family flowers give them secondary toxins and are found along the migration route and in the Mexico reserves.
This is a big issue on the west coast, we rarely get freezes. The native milkweeds - Narrow leaf and Wolly pod (For my region) dieback in fall. The coastal wintering monarchs will brood up in December/January with tropical milk weed. A lot of garden centers will sell tropical milkweed as early as February. One group that I won't mention once advocated to seed bomb a bunch of areas with tropical milkweed in the Late 1990's/Early 2000's. Don't know what they are doing know since I was kicked out/Shunned from the group. (i was against the tropical milkweed seeds bomb efforts).
Here in Tennessee tropical milkweed is not a perennial. It fades and dies when weather turns cold. We have hatched hundreds of Monarchs from tropical and must replant from fresh seed each spring. No old plantings have ever returned in the spring from roots nor wind blown seed. We have to start it in trays then plant in the ground. We have common, swamp, tuberosa plants as well. Newly hatched Monarchs don't hang around...they leave quickly at least in our experience so I don't think we're causing any migration problems by planting tropical fresh in the spring and cutting and discarding tropical plants when the plants begin to fade in the fall. I'm no expert but I am skeptical of "don't grow tropical just to be safe" point of view.
monarchs in the overwintering sites are primarily using fats that they stored as they migrated. They are the only generation to do this. And since the are not mating until the end of the season, there is no milkweed needed where they are either.
Adult butterflies nectar flowers along the migration route and in the reserves in Mexico. The mountains where they winter over do not have any milkweed species, but they do have nectar sources. Some of the flowers we plant as annuals like Cosmos, Marigolds, Mexican Sunflower are all native to Mexico. Some of the species native to the US and Canada are asters, goldenrods, anything in the aster family is great.
Well tropical milkweed is all we have here in Florida and most of our butterflies don't follow the migration pattern to Canada, they stay here in Florida.
tropical is not all you have in florida....there are native milkweeds for florida. go to plantmilkweed.org and see. Please don't kill what you are trying to protect
Try planting native milkweed instead. Pink Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) and White milkweed (Asclepias perennis) are two varieties that can be purchased from a local native plant nursery or order online from floridanativewildflowers.com. Also, monarchs migrate to Mexico, not Canada.
We are gradually transitioning to native milkweed here in California. I just bought a ton of plants since our nurseries have many varieties of native milkweed. We still have tropical milkweed in the yard, but cut it down to the ground every October to prevent any problems. I think it's still fine to grow as long as you make sure to cut it down late summer/early fall.
We grow butterfly milkweed and swamp milkweed here in Indianapolis and get lots of Monarch cats. But we find we need to bring them inside in a habitat to survive the local predators and become butterflies.
You are actually doing more harm by doing that. Not every monarch is going to survive, even in the wild under the best conditions. Its the way of the world. By raising them, or playing Mother Nature, you are actually introducing them to other issues and ultimately killing or harming them. It may bother some but, let Mother Nature do her thing. There are so many ques in the wild that help ANY butterfly along in growth and eclosing. When to leave, when to mate, etc that they cant get indoors. Temperatures, sun angle in the sky, wind shifts, to name a few. I understand it makes you feel like you havea purpose but, in all reality, youre harming them. Let the praying matids have a few, let the spiders have one or 2...birds...wasps, etc. Its the way of the world and the circle of life.
Nothing wrong with growing A. curassavica if one practices good stewardship by hard pruning of plants in fall/early winter to mimic dormancy found in our native milkweeds. If one doesn't prune, then yes, one shouldn't plant.
best practise is to plant native. You know you do no harm when planting native but just in case you are wrong about planting tropical....are you willing to be destroying what you week trying to save....
Andrew Kliss I don't need to prune mine because they eat all the leaves down to the stems LOL they prune it themselves
But what about the seeds your plant produces, that birds & wind carries to other people's yards, & wooded areas? Whose going to Prune those?
What if we... just.... cut the Tropical Milkweed back when native Milkweed goes dormant? Like cut it to the ground?
Yes, that is the best way to use tropical milkweed as a host.
@@ishaan5183 yup that's the answer because if we cut the stems where the last caterpillar where to. cut the stems to the ground and there will no be no OE parasite. we can keep tropical milkweed, it's good. But in winter cut it's stems all the way to the ground so the monarch's could not find the plant and skip migration because they travel to find milkweed because the native milkweed here dies but if they are infected they will find tropical milkweed and spread the disease because if the caterpillar eats the virus and succesfully emerges as a adult it will spread the disease to a lot of monarchs, you will need to cut it all the way down so that healthy monarchs could not get infected by the plant and die. and same for the caterpillars, if everyone does not cut tropical milkweed we will sadly extinct them.
Thanks for your thread, I’m in the Houston area where Mexican Milkweed IS native. My milkweed has gotten extremely long and lanky, so I wanted to know if I could cut it back without killing it. After watching this video I now have more reasons than one to trim them short. I inherited this monarch sanctuary from the former homeowner.
@@whatwhat8524 well, that is for Florida, and I’m sorry to say I don’t live in Florida so I don’t know what’s happening there, but in California and places like that our native milkweeds go dormant
I would just like to point out that in some parts of the world, such as the Canary Islands, there are no endemic milkweeds and Monarchs have only been able to colonise the islands because Tropical Milkweed was planted long ago in gardens. Because the temperatures in coastal areas remain warm enough all year around the butterflies do not migrate. The same situation applies in mainland Spain and Portugal. There are two types of Monarch: migratory and non-migratory. The ones in the migratory populations have a much longer lifespan for the generation that lives through the late fall and winter months. Permanent population butterflies have shorter lives but breed all through the year.
Increases in average daily dew point in the US is also reducing the urge to migrate to Central America, though herbicide use and runoff are bigger issues here.
@@bluepvp900, it appears that migration is an adaptation that evolved to deal with circumstances but is not a necessity for the insect's survival, and so around the world there are many resident populations and some migrtatory ones too. In Australia and New Zealand, I understand there are migratory Monarchs, as well as those in America.
@@bardofely I didn't really think it through from that perspective. That makes it an incredibly interesting adaptation, when certain factors exist (temperature or dewpoint here) migration behavior is more likely to be triggered or not to be. Evolution is amazing, adaptations are more complex that I realized, and it's awe inspiring to me. I love it, and will be planting milkweed and other helpful native plants in my garden as soon as they show up in the mail.
@@bluepvp900, yes, most people think of Monarchs as only being in the US but there are many populations in many other countries, and it seems this butterfly will colonise a new area, as long as its foodplants grow there. It can adapt too to changing temperatures. Look at this site about Monarchs in New Zealand: www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/511-monarch-butterflies
@@bardofely Right, however it does provide an advantage through certain periods, otherwise it would not be inherited. Evolution doesn't really create behaviors, the situations existing in the world are the way they are and particular adaptations allow for higher chances of survival. With enough events and occurrences statistically these individual events and adaptations result in favored genetics. It makes perfect sense. When it doesn't seem to make sense, expect that we are looking at things wrong...I start with checking my assumptions when this happens lol.
I’m a snow bird from Philly living in Clearwater Florida from Jan to mid April. I bought 5 tropical plants last year and when I came back in Jan I had 36 cats on my plants. I bought 4 more and they ate the leaves and half the stalks. I brought them to the sunny side of site and they came back after a month and got more cats and they ate them down. But when they go to cocoon I don’t see 36 cocoons but around 5. So somewhere they aren’t making it to the cocoon stage. So I got a little terrarium and have 3 cocooned now. That really seems the best success rate! When would these cats go north from central Florida? Now I have more kids to take care of !
I also live in Florida and tropical milkweed is just a part of our environment. We have a population of non-migratory Monarchs. You'll find that wasps will eat a lot of caterpillars. People's hair is on fire for some reason about tropical milkweed but don't worry about it. The disease OE is around because Monarchs have lost so much habitat they congregate more on a limited amount of milkweed. Just like humans, if people crowed to much, disease follows. Do your thing and plant tropical milkweed if you want. Use butterfly covers you can buy on Amazon to protect them from wasps and every one will go to cocoon.
@@dhill7173 so now I have around 14 plants and their all stubs ! I got a tent to insure the wasps and geckos don’t get them . I had 11 butterflies so far and have 18 crytalist waiting ! You can’t have enough milkweed plants !
The lack of native milkweed species is no longer an issue. The USGS and Fish and Wildlife departments began producing millions of plants with various nurseries to work towards a goal of planting over 1.3 billion milkweed plants. They are asking every farmer and individual to help by planting as much as possible, as well. Several sources exist that provide either free or very low cost seeds to anyone interested. $3 for 150 seeds from one source, for example, with several options regarding particular variety including one where they choose the best plants for your location.
Nectar sources are also needed. Nectar fuels the migration coming and going. Plant for all seasons. Monarchs need nectar in the spring just like they need it in the fall. They do put on lipids/fats as they migrate in the fall, but the Mexico reserves are filled with flowers and on warm days they are out taking water to digest those fats and also nectaring. Aster family flowers give them secondary toxins and are found along the migration route and in the Mexico reserves.
Good informative video. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks 🦋💯💟🙏🏼
आप लोग सिर्फ मोनार्क पर ही ध्यान दें ते है और भी कितनी खुबसूरत तितलियाँ है
This is a big issue on the west coast, we rarely get freezes. The native milkweeds - Narrow leaf and Wolly pod (For my region) dieback in fall. The coastal wintering monarchs will brood up in December/January with tropical milk weed. A lot of garden centers will sell tropical milkweed as early as February. One group that I won't mention once advocated to seed bomb a bunch of areas with tropical milkweed in the Late 1990's/Early 2000's. Don't know what they are doing know since I was kicked out/Shunned from the group. (i was against the tropical milkweed seeds bomb efforts).
Here in Tennessee tropical milkweed is not a perennial. It fades and dies when weather turns cold. We have hatched hundreds of Monarchs from tropical and must replant from fresh seed each spring. No old plantings have ever returned in the spring from roots nor wind blown seed. We have to start it in trays then plant in the ground. We have common, swamp, tuberosa plants as well. Newly hatched Monarchs don't hang around...they leave quickly at least in our experience so I don't think we're causing any migration problems by planting tropical fresh in the spring and cutting and discarding tropical plants when the plants begin to fade in the fall. I'm no expert but I am skeptical of "don't grow tropical just to be safe" point of view.
I only plant native milkweed.
Can you please let me know what do the butterflies eat ones they migrated to Mexico?
monarchs in the overwintering sites are primarily using fats that they stored as they migrated. They are the only generation to do this. And since the are not mating until the end of the season, there is no milkweed needed where they are either.
Adult butterflies nectar flowers along the migration route and in the reserves in Mexico. The mountains where they winter over do not have any milkweed species, but they do have nectar sources. Some of the flowers we plant as annuals like Cosmos, Marigolds, Mexican Sunflower are all native to Mexico. Some of the species native to the US and Canada are asters, goldenrods, anything in the aster family is great.
What do I do if i have tropical milkweed
You can still keep it, just prune it back when the native species go dormant, if not, then why care for the monarchs?
Bardzo ciekawe wideo❤🧡💚
Well tropical milkweed is all we have here in Florida and most of our butterflies don't follow the migration pattern to Canada, they stay here in Florida.
tropical is not all you have in florida....there are native milkweeds for florida. go to plantmilkweed.org and see. Please don't kill what you are trying to protect
Try planting native milkweed instead. Pink Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) and White milkweed (Asclepias perennis) are two varieties that can be purchased from a local native plant nursery or order online from floridanativewildflowers.com. Also, monarchs migrate to Mexico, not Canada.
@@conniemasotti7002 stop the fear
Monarchs migrate North to Canada in the spring and South to Mexico in the fall. They breed along the way.
So true!!!! Hi candy
If this is so dangerous why would they be selling these type of plants to us.
Yeah, it's fake-ass fearmongering propaganda.
Because they don't know or less likely, because they don't care.
One word: MONEY!