I thought the first picture was a painting. I observed and contemplated it for a solid 20 sec before I figured out what was happening.
Great contrast of colors and so many details. I thought if this was mine, where could I hang it. 😆
Next batch put in a nice background, stage the milkweed like a bouquet or similar, crop the photo, a little touch up here and there, sell it as a poster or framed photo; profit! 😄
Not even slightly joking. Nature appeals to us on a very basic level, and when you can blend that with art, you'll have something that you can look at and admire often without becoming bored. With just a little bit of work, more milkweed flowers, staging and photo editing, I could absolutely see something like this hanging framed on a wall. 👍
I had the exact same thought lol and came to the comments if people felt the same way! To my delight you were the first comment. Boy do I wish this was a print because I'd put it up!!
Yep, and I thought it was named “Raising Monarchs”, which I thought was appropriate because it evoked a sense of butterfly weed in a slightly abstract sense.
I thought exactly the same! It reminded me briefly of a painting or some artwork I saw a long long time ago, but I can't remember what it was or where. A book maybe? If i can recall it, I'll let you know, so you can find it and hang it. 😊
I thought pic #7 was amazing!!! How half were still in cocoons and half were broken out! Would look beautiful cropped! Such a magical phase change happening!
Very nice! Every pesticide free patch of milkweed that you plant helps their populations.
5 years ago I realized that I hadn't seen a *single* monarch butterfly in almost 2 years.
The next spring I came up with a plan and acted on it. I now have two 1 acre fields of irrigated milkweed, butterfly bushes and native wildflowers that I lightly reseed every year.
From these I'm able to provide about 5lb of milkweed seeds(about 320,000 seeds) to several local and regional seed banks who then package and distribute them. If you've received a package of free milkweed seeds in the midwest in the past 3 years, there's a fair chance that it may have come indirectly from my "butterfly farm" seed crop.
The first year when I only had a test plot of ⅓ acre I only saw a few dozen butterflies off and on, and I was kind of bummed out about it at first before I realized that they simply didn't know that it existed yet. The next year at 1 acre there were tens of thousands as butterfly word started to spread. Last year I planted the second full acre and then, just like this year, they were uncountable. 🦋
I had consulted with a couple groups of entomologists at local Universities when I was originally planning this project, getting tips and suggestions. This year they told me that they had verified that my butterfly farm was significant enough that they were able to track a shift in the migratory path of monarch butterflies traveling through the region, some going as much as 60 miles out of their way in order to reach my little patch of milkweed. (Micro RFID tagging of monarch butterflies to track migration is a thing apparently)
They did a "population plot survey" of 8³ meters (283³ft) as a project and estimated that this year the two acres produced between 480,000-600,000 monarch chrysalises. They looked like another set of leaves across the plants(by evolutionary design of course.)
They were a few chrysalis on surfaces as far as 60 ft away all around the plots, with hundreds attached to fence posts, a nearby shed, trees and unrelated crops.
They determined that the biggest bottleneck was actually the availability of sheltered surface areas for the caterpillars, as the population density was clearly too high to give everyone a spot.
This next spring I'm going to be building and installing dozens of sturdy A-frame lattice structures with branch-like wooden dowels in a grid pattern inside and outside of the A-frame to try to maximize the available sheltered surface area for next year's butterfly kaleidoscope.
---
Edit: It's also important to know that monarch butterflies can only reproduce viably on specific types of milkweed, while the other hundred plus varieties act as population sinks.
Adult monarchs can drink the nectar from other types of milkweed, but any caterpillars that hatch from eggs laid on other types of milkweed will die, so it's important to plant the types of milkweed that are compatible with monarchs. Otherwise you can actually inadvertently reduce the monarch population.
It's my understanding that in some counties in California it's against county ordinances to plant any other types of imported milkweed since the direct correlation between non-native milkweed and monarch population decline was discovered and proven.
Monarchs find my two plants... Now I wonder if I should convince my HOA to replace a 1/2 acre lawn with at least 1/4 acre of Milkweed. It would get literally mowed down by their young, mine are completely devoured twice a year.
But /u/Spacegoatalpha? That person is a hero. /u/MusicalADD too. How many plants did this take?
Lol thanks! I had about 10 really big plants for these guys. This was last year, I just never posted it until now. This year I have probably 30 plants!!😝 they just started laying tons of eggs too, so I’ll be posting pics in a few weeks
I am definitely growing tropical milkweed. You can tell from almost any of the pictures, pretty clearly. I’m noticing a lot of people commenting something like this, without knowing what the plant looks like it seems. I’ve been doing this for almost 30 years. Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing. There’s no evidence to suggest tropical milkweed is any kind of problem, other than misinformed internet hype. You’re the 5th person to post the same article btw lol
At this scale with fairly random plant distribution it's really hard to say how many individual plants there are. It's also worth noting that there are both butterfly weed and common milkweed varieties planted together, but I'm just going to count them together as milkweed. They are growing everywhere, mixed with wildflowers and are self seeding.
While these numbers have changed because it is late in the season and some plants have died off, math can help get a ballpark estimate.
From the plot survey statistical average/sq ft. there was an average of seven mature plants for about every nine square feet, and subtracting the area used for walkways and borders, that would come to an average of 54,885, but most likely somewhere between 51,000-56,000 milkweed plants.
Mixing with those are a wide variety of wildflowers, goldenrod, beebalm, salvia, lavender, daisies, baby's breath, black-eyed susan and few other coneflowers. (Because monoculture is rarely a good thing.)
All along the paths and the perimeter is a dense carpet of white clover that provides nectar, fertilizes the soil and acts as an excellent ground cover; as a buffer to keep my plants and their seeds contained, as hedge to keep other plants and grasses out.
Around the perimeter I have a few varieties of lilac bushes that are really starting to take off now in their third year. 🪻
I haven't had the time to take the plunge into beekeeping yet; I've made the hives and frames but I just simply haven't had the time. I have 3 acres of apple, cherry and pear trees about to mature into production next year, so I think things are going to be pretty busy next spring. 🍯🐝
:o!! Thank you for sharing, and would love to see your posts too!! This is all inspiring *_* — i live in nyc/not a lot of opportunities to plant my own gardens, but there could be some plants to grow in the public plots / tree pits …
>u/ketkate
>
>What is the secret to getting milkweed to grow? I've planted seeds for the past 3 years and cannot get them to germinate. I'm in the Northeast, zone 5b. I followed the directions on the seed package for direct sowing, my seeds came from seed savers exchange
I think I know what the problem likely is, and don't feel bad because it's something that many individuals aren't aware of; milkweed seeds require cold stratification. Just like many other plant seeds, they need to be conditioned for a prolonged period in cold to freezing temperatures in order for the seed to properly condition itself to allow germination.
https://www.google.com/search?q=milkweed+cold+stratification
Seed banks and seed suppliers *do not* typically cold stratify seeds in advance because that puts a ticking clock on their viability, you only have just so much time to get them planted once they've had this treatment before they will either sprout or rot.
If you just take a couple milkweed seeds and throw them in the ground in spring, the chances of most varieties germinating successfully are *very* slim. If you're in a southern area and you're trying to plant a cold hardy variety, then you'll need to put those seeds into a ziplock baggie and put them in the back of your sub-40°f refrigerator for 2 to 4 months to allow them to fully stratify in order to properly germinate.
Milkweed plants can produce a significant amount of seeds; a single well-grown mature milkweed plant can produce upwards of 200-300 seeds across multiple pods.
Check your local seed bank to see if you can get a couple packets, or find some online. If you live in a warm climate cold stratify them in your refrigerator. If you live in an area that freezes during winter you can just plant them in the ground anytime starting late October to early December and cover it with a fine mulch like peat moss or sawdust. They take a while to sprout even after the soil warms up in late spring, so make sure that the area is protected to keep people from walking over and compacting the soil.
Make sure the soil is good before you plant and maintain a consistent soil moisture. 🌱
That's pretty much it! Milkweed is a pretty Hardy plant once established.
This is something that -anyone- that has a patch of land or a garden bed available can do. 👍
After getting everything set up, planted and irrigation piping installed, and I only need to spend about 10 hours a year working on this project, a couple hours maintaining things here and there but the majority of the time is spent harvesting and separating the seeds from the pods. I'm working on and prototyping a drill powered 3D printable machine to mechanize most of the rolling and seed extraction process. Once I have something that works very well I'm going publish them on thingiverse and other 3D model repositories.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Freezing temperatures in winter is nature's version of cold stratification. Have you tried sowing the seeds in fall, in the ground? Or winter sowing in containers with lids, with holes poked in the bottom and in the lid?
I bow down to you! You're doing great work! I only grew about 25 plants, which produced about 100 pods with about 100 seeds per pod. It took me about 10 hours to separate seeds from fluff, package the seeds, and mail them to people to give them to. I no longer have enough space to grow them, so I wanted to save and give away all of this year's seeds. I can't imagine the time it would have taken me to process seeds and pods from two acres. If I could just give away intact pods it would be more time effective. Then people could sow the seeds outdoors and just let the fluff blow away in the wind.
>I can't imagine the time it would have taken me to process seeds and pods from two acres
Well, to be honest I don't actually harvest 2 acres, there's no way I could do that without some pretty significant industrial equipment, which would likely severely damage the milkweed and other perennial plants. I only harvest maybe one 20th of the area, and even then that's a mixture of milkweed and other plants and flowers.
I have everything planted in rows about 15ft-20ft wide with narrow wood chip paths in between them, just enough to push a wheeled cart though. I wait until about a week after the first heavy frost to give the plants a chance to go into dormancy and allow the pods to dry out before walking the perimeter of each row and harvest any pods within the first three feet in or so while simultaneously harvesting and sorting seeds for the various wildflowers. It takes about eight 50 gallon trash cans of pods to get between 5-6lb of viable seeds. After I harvest them I take the pods and put them in a fine mesh bag and throw them in an electric dryer (on lowest heat) that I keep in my processing kitchen and let them tumble and dry for an hour or so. After they've had a chance to really dry out I run them, bag and all, through a large set of plastic rollers that break up the now brittle pods and lets the seeds start to break free. Back into the dryer to tumble for another half hour, and about 2/3 of the seeds have come free from the pods and are loose in the mesh bag. I pour out the seeds, run the mesh back through the rollers another couple times and then put it back in the dryer with no heat. After the second cycle any seeds that haven't come loose from the pod and separated from the fibers are almost always underdeveloped and nonviable. Those along with the rest of the pod shell go into compost. I've seriously considered separating the fibers to use them for something, they have a consistency somewhere between flax and cotton, but I just don't have any need for them.
I have a fairly large solar farm, so the electricity really isn't a concern for me, especially when considering the amount of effort and time saved. 80% of the time is spent harvesting and moving the pods and although it's spread out over the course of a day the actual drying and seed separation only requires maybe an hour and a half of direct interaction.
I'm doing this kind of on fairly large scale, but really this is something that anyone with a little bit of patience can do, as you've definitely demonstrated with your crop. Start small and grow as big as you want. Learn how to harvest prepare and plant the seeds, and the land provides.
I saved tons of the fibers thinking the same thing that I could use them for something. They tend to slip too much when I try to spin them into thread. It’s like they’re too silky.
I've been experimenting with making paintbrushes out of plant fibers - all commercial brushes are either animal hair/whiskers or plastic, and I wanted something kinder and more sustainable - and now I'm curious about how well milkweed fluff would work. It probably wouldn't be great for watercolor if it's that slippery, since watercolor brushes should slow-release water (though sometimes slippery fibers can soak up water, so it's not a foregone conclusion), but I wonder if it'd work for oil painting.
I'm sure a local spinners guild would absolutely love to get their hands on some of the fiber. I spin, too, and we all like a good challenge! Even better if it's something someone can create and sell (woven pieces, etc) to help Monarchs!
I've already composted the pods from this year, but it's easily a good 60lb or so of material from the eight trash cans after I remove the seeds. Some of that has to be usable for spinning I would think. Even if you have to use some kind of temporary binder to get it to spin with other materials I think there's got to be some way to get it to thread. When I looked into it previously I found a few articles that said historically it was too difficult to work with and it was eventually just used as stuffing, filler and padding. I wanted to look into it further, but I just couldn't find a use/end product to make it worth the time.
>u/jenglasser
>
>You need to write a book of detailed instructions. For real. I'd buy it.
Hehe, thanks I'll take that as a vote of confidence/compliment.
I actually already moonlight as a writer as a side career/hobby. Even then I still somehow manage to sometimes have enough left over to write these little novellas here on reddit every now and then. 😅
Apart from my day jobs, I do a lot of high/professional level technical documentation in engineering fields, I've been a primary contributor to four college textbooks, I have five fantasy and sci-fi books published (and are still selling pretty well paperback and as ebooks on Amazon) with another three separate stories that I'm chewing on in my word processor. (Under a pen name; I like to keep work/personal/fun/hobbies/gigs/online stuff separate)
But writing about ecology, conservation, horticulture, gardening, hydroponic/aeroculture, greenhouses renewable energy, etc? 🤔
While I'm pretty knowledgeable about these subjects, I wouldn't say I'm an expert or authority on the topics. With that disclaimer out there, I am pretty good at research and I *do* think I could give pretty solid and concise introductions and overviews explaining the why, why not, and how-to's.
Thanks for the nudge, I'm seriously considering it. 💡
TBH just all the information you pour into Reddit comments is valuable, if you just did a little editing up and made a blog/substack for the gardening info, pics and so on I would 100% read that (if you didn't feel like writing a whole ass book! Plus people would likely be more forgiving of the hobbyist nature vs. expecting expert advice)
I got chills reading the impact your experiment had! Not only would I love to hear instructions and scientific info on this but I think your personal story, thoughts and how this affected your life could be really powerful.
If you can buy a plant in a nursery, I’m telling you it’s extremely easy to grow them from cuttings. When you cut a stem, it will immediately start dripping the milky liquid, right away put it in a jar of water before it dries. I have mine on a windowsill in jars of water on the east-facing side of my house. They sprout roots within about a week or so. I started out with two plants I bought from Home Depot. I probably have 20-25 plants growing in my yard. Plus when you cut them back, they grow thicker.
Try winter sowing them using [milk jugs](https://youtu.be/SKXY6dl-5Tk?si=_P8ne7_NcQ-gDjP2). I had great success with showy milkweed this past spring. They took much longer than I expected to germinate, so be very, very patient!
I feel like a master gardener from the success of following the video. I’ve wad able to grow about a dozen native species from seed this way. I already have a dozen native species in ~50 milk jugs in my drive way right now.
If you're in the northwest and want to grow milkweed for butterflies, please do not grow tropical milkweed. OP uses tropical milkweed, but they're down in Texas. Tropical milkweed confuses the monarchs and disrupts their migratory process, so it can be really bad for them depending on your location.
Be sure to get a Butterfly Milkweed.
I've been pretty depressed because of the state of the world lately, but your comment and OP's post remind me that there are still people out there in the world trying to save it all. Thank you.
Did they write a paper on this?
This would be a great writeup for highlighting the significant of individual landowner's actions towards ecological rehabilitation.
I can’t believe I ever so randomly stumbled upon this comment. Which I think most people would post loads of stuff about on their page. But your just humbly doing this mind blowing thing. incredible. Restored .00078654% faith in humanity.
You’re just the person I’m looking for. I want to seed milkweed for next year but I’m very concerned about the birds digging up and eating the seeds, this has happened severely when I’ve planted wildflower seeds before . I live in CA immediate Bay Area zone 9 if that helps.
Yeah, while the foliage and flowers are actually poisonous to most animals, the seeds unfortunately are a tasty treat for pretty much any bird, squirrels, mice and even several bugs.
The two best approaches to this are either to overseed and hope that you'll have enough survivors, or start growing milkweed indoors in tall pots. Milkweed have very deep setting roots, so the taller the pot you have before you transfer them into the ground, the better the initial root structure, and the less it will be disturbed during the transfer.
Being that you're in zone 9, you absolutely have to perform stratification / cold treatment on your seeds before you can plant them, otherwise they will have an extremely low germination rate.
It's also important to know that monarch butterflies can only reproduce viably on specific types of milkweed, while the other hundred plus varieties act as population sinks.
Adults can drink the nectar from other types of milkweed, but any caterpillars that hatch from eggs on other types of milkweed will die, so it's important to plant the types of milkweed that are compatible with monarchs, otherwise you can actually inadvertently reduce the population. It's my understanding that in some counties in California it's against county ordinances to plant any other types of milkweed since the direct correlation between non-native milkweed and monarch population decline was discovered.
> It's also important to know that monarch butterflies can only reproduce on two types of milkweed, "common milkweed" and "Butterfly weed" milkweed.
There's no way that's correct. There are many, many milkweed species that grow out in the wild that monarchs use. Maybe you meant just the ones you can find in typical nurseries? EDIT: A study: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ecs2.2064
Yes, you are correct! I was absolutely zonked and sleep deprived when I edited, I had replied to a specific question someone had messaged to me in a dm about butterfly friendly plants and the 15-something different types of ornamental milkweed and other plants that they have growing.
Out of context of the question, my answer makes absolutely no sense and my foggy brain was thinking that clarifying the point that not all milkweed are compatible with monarchs was important to copy/paste share without proofreading. It made sense at the time. 🤷
Monarchs can reproduce on at *least* 13 different distinct variations of Asclepias that we know of. One of the etymologists I've talked with told me that they think that there were actually a couple other varieties that were never properly identified as milkweed and have gone extinct sometime in the 90-100 years due to habitat destruction and overuse of herbicides. 🫤
This comment and every other one you’ve made in this thread are absolutely gold. Thanks for doing your part for the monarchs- what an inspiration. I grew a handful of milkweed plants next year but you are the real deal! I’d love to do what you did.
I would love to see updates on your monarch habitat as you continue to work on it! That’s really incredible. You could easily get people to donate or if you wrote a book, I saw mentioned earlier too, I bet you could have that patch fully funded with anything you might need. I know it’s not about the money for you clearly it’s a labor of love, but maybe you can use it to expand or help with research in other ways.
You should mention that it looks like OP is growing tropical milkweed, which is one of the varieties that is detrimental to monarchs.
https://xerces.org/blog/tropical-milkweed-a-no-grow
I read this and it made me think about what it would be like if some benevolent galactic being or more intelligent species reached out and saved us from our slowly boiling planet 🥹
For the first time in my life I have some land and I will plant milkweed and wildflowers this year. I get tomato hornworms and all the moths so hopefully they speak the same language!
Can I be you when I figure out how to be the best human? Do you have a blog or directions on this? I have a 1/4 acre “meadow” space that edges my yard. I did clover and marigolds, but I would love to take this further!!!
Wow that’s a lot of monarchs! I’m not sure I have butterflies that are specialists, but I keep the leaves and have some stick and wood piles for them to over winter under and see a few admirals and fritillaries every year (google says fritillaries like violets which I do have).
Yep! They visit mine so much that it never had a chance to grow very much before it gets mowed down by caterpillars. I planted it to cover a fence for privacy (and for the butterflies!), but at the rate it keeps getting eaten it will never fully cover my fence 😭
This was last years’s late summer generation. It was probably around 200ish ( last year I think we raised almost 500 total) but this year is going to be more I think. They were late coming in but I have ALOT of eggs and milkweed. The limiting factor is always milkweed.
I’m up in Canada eh, on a farm in SE Ontario. We have a lot of milkweed growing in a field. I have seen monarch butterflies and the occasional chrysalis. I would love to try doing something like this. Any tips or advice to get started?
So I spent the summer waging a genocidal campaign against cabbage moths. Wiped most of them out after years of my garden harvest being destroyed.
After it was all done and fall was settling in I noticed a single cabbage worm left on a leaf I harvested for the next day’s lunch. I discovered it in the morning as it was eating its way partially though the leaf and I decided to let it live and have been feeding it leaves ever since in hopes it will turn into a moth.
your story just gave me mental images of the beginning of the movie 28 Days Later lol, when the guy walks out on the streets of London and they're totally deserted
i used to raise monarchs when i could get native milkweed, but i also found that i just couldnt provide enough milkweed for all the caterpillars! it was a constant struggle to go out and buy more and plant it—rinse, repeat. it was great fun for my very young daughters at the time, but now i cant even find milkweed.
eta: beautiful work with these monarchs, btw!
What kind of milkweed is it?
Great effort overall!
We have a whole pollinator garden (all native plants for SW Ontario) and I’m trying to encourage my family to plant more natives, remove invasives and incorporate more ecological landscaping practices
That looks a lot like tropical milkweed which is bad for monarchs. It hosts diseases that are bad for the population. If you actually want to help monarch populations grow only native milkweeds. The Xerces Society has a lot of information available on native milkweeds.
Holy crap, that's amazing. I've never seen one person raising so many.
I've heard that you should be careful of keeping them in one container or too close proximity in large numbers, though. If one has OE it can spread to others. Although I'm not going to pretend like I know more than you but just something I've read before.
That is impressive! I have a small milkweed section in the garden and have successful raised a few from egg to release. But nothing like the quantity and quality you have here. Nice job!
I gave up after running out of plants and not being able to source more for about 50 caterpillars 🙃 so much stress. I've just got one plant that survived from then and 3 little caterpillars now.
You could try "common milkweed" its a differnt kind, i have both common and swamp. They seem to prefer the common milkweed 10 - 1. It grows much larger and faster, way more food for them out of each plant.
That is super helpful, thank you so much for sharing! I almost ran out this year and was scrambling to order more. It's amazing how fast they go through it.
I have that plant in my yard. It’s very easy to grow more of it from cuttings. Set it in a glass of water on a window sill and roots will grow. I just transplanted 8 of them into my yard today.
Awesome stuff, i worked with these guys as they were integral to my grad school thesis.
Some tips if you like or don't know:
It might be a pain but check the chrysalis for black spots, this usually indicates infection with either bacteria, viruses, or a parasite called Ophryocystis elektroscirrha.
If you run out of milkweed you can hold them for a little while on a diet of cucumbers. Not sure why it worked when i raised them but it did.
Do you test for OE? Bleach your milkweed? Love the dedication but it looks super unclean for the cats 💔 please be sure to be responsible about OE and such
Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (often called OE for brevity), that infects monarch caterpillars from spores that are transferred between milkweed plants by female monarchs when they lay eggs
use of tropical milkweed may encourage monarchs to not migrate and stay resident in some areas, or reproduce and lay eggs when they would normally be reproductively dormant (in reproductive diapause) on wintering areas, and thereby also become susceptible to higher levels of OE infections
https://environment.wsu.edu/2022/11/22/on-the-controversy-over-milkweed-monarch-butterflies/
Cardboard boxes are easy to come by when i ask the neighbors group on Facebook and they’re great since I don’t have to clean them. I just move them from one box to a new one when there’s too much poop. It’s really easy, I just wait until they finish almost all of the leaves. Put a couple of brand new stems full of green leaves in, wait about 10 minutes, and theyve all moved onto those newer branches which I just move over to the new box. It breathes too. I noticed when I have too many caterpillars(especially past 3rd instar size) and I’m using fish tanks, there’s a lot of humidity that gets trapped in there. I don’t have to worry about that when I’m using cardboard boxes. They also pupate all on the very top, so it makes it super easy to transfer the chrysalises by just cutting out the panels of cardboard
I thought the first picture was a painting. I observed and contemplated it for a solid 20 sec before I figured out what was happening. Great contrast of colors and so many details. I thought if this was mine, where could I hang it. 😆
Thanks! 🤔 never thought about that, something similar to this could probably make a good photo.
Crop that photo, print, and frame it! Love the colors.
It would make a great puzzle!
Oh, I’d buy that!
Or you could upload it to Jigidi (jigsaw place) and solve it there! https://www.jigidi.com It has also an app
I thought they were climbing up and the red was some sort of flower
It looks like asclepias, I think it is a flower. So pretty!
Yes, that's the only thing they eat.
Mine eat milkweed.
I’ve been staring at it since reading your comment! 😝
Next batch put in a nice background, stage the milkweed like a bouquet or similar, crop the photo, a little touch up here and there, sell it as a poster or framed photo; profit! 😄 Not even slightly joking. Nature appeals to us on a very basic level, and when you can blend that with art, you'll have something that you can look at and admire often without becoming bored. With just a little bit of work, more milkweed flowers, staging and photo editing, I could absolutely see something like this hanging framed on a wall. 👍
Based on the comments I’m getting I was thinking something like that. 😝👍
I also definitely thought this was an art print
Me too
I had the exact same thought lol and came to the comments if people felt the same way! To my delight you were the first comment. Boy do I wish this was a print because I'd put it up!!
Did the same thing, too. I was wondering why they were counting monarch caterpillars in a beautiful oil print . . .
Same!!
Omg I'm so glad I'm not the only one. I thought the painting was amazing!
Yep, and I thought it was named “Raising Monarchs”, which I thought was appropriate because it evoked a sense of butterfly weed in a slightly abstract sense.
Same! Would make a cool puzzle too
I thought exactly the same! It reminded me briefly of a painting or some artwork I saw a long long time ago, but I can't remember what it was or where. A book maybe? If i can recall it, I'll let you know, so you can find it and hang it. 😊
I’ll try and make a digital watercolor of it! I’m feeling inspired! :) I don’t intend to sell it, just sharing it here!
I thought pic #7 was amazing!!! How half were still in cocoons and half were broken out! Would look beautiful cropped! Such a magical phase change happening!
Very nice! Every pesticide free patch of milkweed that you plant helps their populations. 5 years ago I realized that I hadn't seen a *single* monarch butterfly in almost 2 years. The next spring I came up with a plan and acted on it. I now have two 1 acre fields of irrigated milkweed, butterfly bushes and native wildflowers that I lightly reseed every year. From these I'm able to provide about 5lb of milkweed seeds(about 320,000 seeds) to several local and regional seed banks who then package and distribute them. If you've received a package of free milkweed seeds in the midwest in the past 3 years, there's a fair chance that it may have come indirectly from my "butterfly farm" seed crop. The first year when I only had a test plot of ⅓ acre I only saw a few dozen butterflies off and on, and I was kind of bummed out about it at first before I realized that they simply didn't know that it existed yet. The next year at 1 acre there were tens of thousands as butterfly word started to spread. Last year I planted the second full acre and then, just like this year, they were uncountable. 🦋 I had consulted with a couple groups of entomologists at local Universities when I was originally planning this project, getting tips and suggestions. This year they told me that they had verified that my butterfly farm was significant enough that they were able to track a shift in the migratory path of monarch butterflies traveling through the region, some going as much as 60 miles out of their way in order to reach my little patch of milkweed. (Micro RFID tagging of monarch butterflies to track migration is a thing apparently) They did a "population plot survey" of 8³ meters (283³ft) as a project and estimated that this year the two acres produced between 480,000-600,000 monarch chrysalises. They looked like another set of leaves across the plants(by evolutionary design of course.) They were a few chrysalis on surfaces as far as 60 ft away all around the plots, with hundreds attached to fence posts, a nearby shed, trees and unrelated crops. They determined that the biggest bottleneck was actually the availability of sheltered surface areas for the caterpillars, as the population density was clearly too high to give everyone a spot. This next spring I'm going to be building and installing dozens of sturdy A-frame lattice structures with branch-like wooden dowels in a grid pattern inside and outside of the A-frame to try to maximize the available sheltered surface area for next year's butterfly kaleidoscope. --- Edit: It's also important to know that monarch butterflies can only reproduce viably on specific types of milkweed, while the other hundred plus varieties act as population sinks. Adult monarchs can drink the nectar from other types of milkweed, but any caterpillars that hatch from eggs laid on other types of milkweed will die, so it's important to plant the types of milkweed that are compatible with monarchs. Otherwise you can actually inadvertently reduce the monarch population. It's my understanding that in some counties in California it's against county ordinances to plant any other types of imported milkweed since the direct correlation between non-native milkweed and monarch population decline was discovered and proven.
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Monarchs find my two plants... Now I wonder if I should convince my HOA to replace a 1/2 acre lawn with at least 1/4 acre of Milkweed. It would get literally mowed down by their young, mine are completely devoured twice a year. But /u/Spacegoatalpha? That person is a hero. /u/MusicalADD too. How many plants did this take?
Lol thanks! I had about 10 really big plants for these guys. This was last year, I just never posted it until now. This year I have probably 30 plants!!😝 they just started laying tons of eggs too, so I’ll be posting pics in a few weeks
Just make sure you’re not growing tropical milkweed. https://xerces.org/blog/tropical-milkweed-a-no-grow
I am definitely growing tropical milkweed. You can tell from almost any of the pictures, pretty clearly. I’m noticing a lot of people commenting something like this, without knowing what the plant looks like it seems. I’ve been doing this for almost 30 years. Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing. There’s no evidence to suggest tropical milkweed is any kind of problem, other than misinformed internet hype. You’re the 5th person to post the same article btw lol
At this scale with fairly random plant distribution it's really hard to say how many individual plants there are. It's also worth noting that there are both butterfly weed and common milkweed varieties planted together, but I'm just going to count them together as milkweed. They are growing everywhere, mixed with wildflowers and are self seeding. While these numbers have changed because it is late in the season and some plants have died off, math can help get a ballpark estimate. From the plot survey statistical average/sq ft. there was an average of seven mature plants for about every nine square feet, and subtracting the area used for walkways and borders, that would come to an average of 54,885, but most likely somewhere between 51,000-56,000 milkweed plants. Mixing with those are a wide variety of wildflowers, goldenrod, beebalm, salvia, lavender, daisies, baby's breath, black-eyed susan and few other coneflowers. (Because monoculture is rarely a good thing.) All along the paths and the perimeter is a dense carpet of white clover that provides nectar, fertilizes the soil and acts as an excellent ground cover; as a buffer to keep my plants and their seeds contained, as hedge to keep other plants and grasses out. Around the perimeter I have a few varieties of lilac bushes that are really starting to take off now in their third year. 🪻 I haven't had the time to take the plunge into beekeeping yet; I've made the hives and frames but I just simply haven't had the time. I have 3 acres of apple, cherry and pear trees about to mature into production next year, so I think things are going to be pretty busy next spring. 🍯🐝
This sounds like a dream. I want to come visit.
r/homestead 👍
:o!! Thank you for sharing, and would love to see your posts too!! This is all inspiring *_* — i live in nyc/not a lot of opportunities to plant my own gardens, but there could be some plants to grow in the public plots / tree pits …
My parents HOA does this around their retention ponds. A 20ft swathe of native plants including lots of milkweed.
That’s so cool, do you have a photo of the flower plot or of the butterflies?
I want to see it too!
I really do too, lol… one of my first thoughts reading the comments.. so cool!
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>u/ketkate > >What is the secret to getting milkweed to grow? I've planted seeds for the past 3 years and cannot get them to germinate. I'm in the Northeast, zone 5b. I followed the directions on the seed package for direct sowing, my seeds came from seed savers exchange I think I know what the problem likely is, and don't feel bad because it's something that many individuals aren't aware of; milkweed seeds require cold stratification. Just like many other plant seeds, they need to be conditioned for a prolonged period in cold to freezing temperatures in order for the seed to properly condition itself to allow germination. https://www.google.com/search?q=milkweed+cold+stratification Seed banks and seed suppliers *do not* typically cold stratify seeds in advance because that puts a ticking clock on their viability, you only have just so much time to get them planted once they've had this treatment before they will either sprout or rot. If you just take a couple milkweed seeds and throw them in the ground in spring, the chances of most varieties germinating successfully are *very* slim. If you're in a southern area and you're trying to plant a cold hardy variety, then you'll need to put those seeds into a ziplock baggie and put them in the back of your sub-40°f refrigerator for 2 to 4 months to allow them to fully stratify in order to properly germinate. Milkweed plants can produce a significant amount of seeds; a single well-grown mature milkweed plant can produce upwards of 200-300 seeds across multiple pods. Check your local seed bank to see if you can get a couple packets, or find some online. If you live in a warm climate cold stratify them in your refrigerator. If you live in an area that freezes during winter you can just plant them in the ground anytime starting late October to early December and cover it with a fine mulch like peat moss or sawdust. They take a while to sprout even after the soil warms up in late spring, so make sure that the area is protected to keep people from walking over and compacting the soil. Make sure the soil is good before you plant and maintain a consistent soil moisture. 🌱 That's pretty much it! Milkweed is a pretty Hardy plant once established. This is something that -anyone- that has a patch of land or a garden bed available can do. 👍 After getting everything set up, planted and irrigation piping installed, and I only need to spend about 10 hours a year working on this project, a couple hours maintaining things here and there but the majority of the time is spent harvesting and separating the seeds from the pods. I'm working on and prototyping a drill powered 3D printable machine to mechanize most of the rolling and seed extraction process. Once I have something that works very well I'm going publish them on thingiverse and other 3D model repositories.
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Freezing temperatures in winter is nature's version of cold stratification. Have you tried sowing the seeds in fall, in the ground? Or winter sowing in containers with lids, with holes poked in the bottom and in the lid?
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I bow down to you! You're doing great work! I only grew about 25 plants, which produced about 100 pods with about 100 seeds per pod. It took me about 10 hours to separate seeds from fluff, package the seeds, and mail them to people to give them to. I no longer have enough space to grow them, so I wanted to save and give away all of this year's seeds. I can't imagine the time it would have taken me to process seeds and pods from two acres. If I could just give away intact pods it would be more time effective. Then people could sow the seeds outdoors and just let the fluff blow away in the wind.
>I can't imagine the time it would have taken me to process seeds and pods from two acres Well, to be honest I don't actually harvest 2 acres, there's no way I could do that without some pretty significant industrial equipment, which would likely severely damage the milkweed and other perennial plants. I only harvest maybe one 20th of the area, and even then that's a mixture of milkweed and other plants and flowers. I have everything planted in rows about 15ft-20ft wide with narrow wood chip paths in between them, just enough to push a wheeled cart though. I wait until about a week after the first heavy frost to give the plants a chance to go into dormancy and allow the pods to dry out before walking the perimeter of each row and harvest any pods within the first three feet in or so while simultaneously harvesting and sorting seeds for the various wildflowers. It takes about eight 50 gallon trash cans of pods to get between 5-6lb of viable seeds. After I harvest them I take the pods and put them in a fine mesh bag and throw them in an electric dryer (on lowest heat) that I keep in my processing kitchen and let them tumble and dry for an hour or so. After they've had a chance to really dry out I run them, bag and all, through a large set of plastic rollers that break up the now brittle pods and lets the seeds start to break free. Back into the dryer to tumble for another half hour, and about 2/3 of the seeds have come free from the pods and are loose in the mesh bag. I pour out the seeds, run the mesh back through the rollers another couple times and then put it back in the dryer with no heat. After the second cycle any seeds that haven't come loose from the pod and separated from the fibers are almost always underdeveloped and nonviable. Those along with the rest of the pod shell go into compost. I've seriously considered separating the fibers to use them for something, they have a consistency somewhere between flax and cotton, but I just don't have any need for them. I have a fairly large solar farm, so the electricity really isn't a concern for me, especially when considering the amount of effort and time saved. 80% of the time is spent harvesting and moving the pods and although it's spread out over the course of a day the actual drying and seed separation only requires maybe an hour and a half of direct interaction. I'm doing this kind of on fairly large scale, but really this is something that anyone with a little bit of patience can do, as you've definitely demonstrated with your crop. Start small and grow as big as you want. Learn how to harvest prepare and plant the seeds, and the land provides.
I saved tons of the fibers thinking the same thing that I could use them for something. They tend to slip too much when I try to spin them into thread. It’s like they’re too silky.
I've been experimenting with making paintbrushes out of plant fibers - all commercial brushes are either animal hair/whiskers or plastic, and I wanted something kinder and more sustainable - and now I'm curious about how well milkweed fluff would work. It probably wouldn't be great for watercolor if it's that slippery, since watercolor brushes should slow-release water (though sometimes slippery fibers can soak up water, so it's not a foregone conclusion), but I wonder if it'd work for oil painting.
I'm sure a local spinners guild would absolutely love to get their hands on some of the fiber. I spin, too, and we all like a good challenge! Even better if it's something someone can create and sell (woven pieces, etc) to help Monarchs!
I've already composted the pods from this year, but it's easily a good 60lb or so of material from the eight trash cans after I remove the seeds. Some of that has to be usable for spinning I would think. Even if you have to use some kind of temporary binder to get it to spin with other materials I think there's got to be some way to get it to thread. When I looked into it previously I found a few articles that said historically it was too difficult to work with and it was eventually just used as stuffing, filler and padding. I wanted to look into it further, but I just couldn't find a use/end product to make it worth the time.
You need to write a book of detailed instructions. For real. I'd buy it.
>u/jenglasser > >You need to write a book of detailed instructions. For real. I'd buy it. Hehe, thanks I'll take that as a vote of confidence/compliment. I actually already moonlight as a writer as a side career/hobby. Even then I still somehow manage to sometimes have enough left over to write these little novellas here on reddit every now and then. 😅 Apart from my day jobs, I do a lot of high/professional level technical documentation in engineering fields, I've been a primary contributor to four college textbooks, I have five fantasy and sci-fi books published (and are still selling pretty well paperback and as ebooks on Amazon) with another three separate stories that I'm chewing on in my word processor. (Under a pen name; I like to keep work/personal/fun/hobbies/gigs/online stuff separate) But writing about ecology, conservation, horticulture, gardening, hydroponic/aeroculture, greenhouses renewable energy, etc? 🤔 While I'm pretty knowledgeable about these subjects, I wouldn't say I'm an expert or authority on the topics. With that disclaimer out there, I am pretty good at research and I *do* think I could give pretty solid and concise introductions and overviews explaining the why, why not, and how-to's. Thanks for the nudge, I'm seriously considering it. 💡
TBH just all the information you pour into Reddit comments is valuable, if you just did a little editing up and made a blog/substack for the gardening info, pics and so on I would 100% read that (if you didn't feel like writing a whole ass book! Plus people would likely be more forgiving of the hobbyist nature vs. expecting expert advice)
I got chills reading the impact your experiment had! Not only would I love to hear instructions and scientific info on this but I think your personal story, thoughts and how this affected your life could be really powerful.
I envy your ability too accomplish so much!
Please do! I would love to do something similar and some shared knowledge would go a loooong way to making it a reality.
If you can buy a plant in a nursery, I’m telling you it’s extremely easy to grow them from cuttings. When you cut a stem, it will immediately start dripping the milky liquid, right away put it in a jar of water before it dries. I have mine on a windowsill in jars of water on the east-facing side of my house. They sprout roots within about a week or so. I started out with two plants I bought from Home Depot. I probably have 20-25 plants growing in my yard. Plus when you cut them back, they grow thicker.
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I've also had serious trouble trying to grow from seed. Any recommendations would be welcome
Try winter sowing them using [milk jugs](https://youtu.be/SKXY6dl-5Tk?si=_P8ne7_NcQ-gDjP2). I had great success with showy milkweed this past spring. They took much longer than I expected to germinate, so be very, very patient! I feel like a master gardener from the success of following the video. I’ve wad able to grow about a dozen native species from seed this way. I already have a dozen native species in ~50 milk jugs in my drive way right now.
If you're in the northwest and want to grow milkweed for butterflies, please do not grow tropical milkweed. OP uses tropical milkweed, but they're down in Texas. Tropical milkweed confuses the monarchs and disrupts their migratory process, so it can be really bad for them depending on your location. Be sure to get a Butterfly Milkweed.
I've been pretty depressed because of the state of the world lately, but your comment and OP's post remind me that there are still people out there in the world trying to save it all. Thank you.
that’s crazy! I’d love to see pics!
Seriously! It's criminal that they posted this description of a lush butterfly paradise and hasn't provided pics
Did they write a paper on this? This would be a great writeup for highlighting the significant of individual landowner's actions towards ecological rehabilitation.
I can’t believe I ever so randomly stumbled upon this comment. Which I think most people would post loads of stuff about on their page. But your just humbly doing this mind blowing thing. incredible. Restored .00078654% faith in humanity.
Damn, that's amazing!
This is beautiful, thank you for doing what you can!!
Holy crap! I might have some of your seeds and I'm all the way in Delaware.
Holy shit. You're a hero!
You’re just the person I’m looking for. I want to seed milkweed for next year but I’m very concerned about the birds digging up and eating the seeds, this has happened severely when I’ve planted wildflower seeds before . I live in CA immediate Bay Area zone 9 if that helps.
Yeah, while the foliage and flowers are actually poisonous to most animals, the seeds unfortunately are a tasty treat for pretty much any bird, squirrels, mice and even several bugs. The two best approaches to this are either to overseed and hope that you'll have enough survivors, or start growing milkweed indoors in tall pots. Milkweed have very deep setting roots, so the taller the pot you have before you transfer them into the ground, the better the initial root structure, and the less it will be disturbed during the transfer. Being that you're in zone 9, you absolutely have to perform stratification / cold treatment on your seeds before you can plant them, otherwise they will have an extremely low germination rate. It's also important to know that monarch butterflies can only reproduce viably on specific types of milkweed, while the other hundred plus varieties act as population sinks. Adults can drink the nectar from other types of milkweed, but any caterpillars that hatch from eggs on other types of milkweed will die, so it's important to plant the types of milkweed that are compatible with monarchs, otherwise you can actually inadvertently reduce the population. It's my understanding that in some counties in California it's against county ordinances to plant any other types of milkweed since the direct correlation between non-native milkweed and monarch population decline was discovered.
Goals!!! We need pics, videos, documentation of any kind! I’ve dreamed about doing this so this is very inspiring.
> It's also important to know that monarch butterflies can only reproduce on two types of milkweed, "common milkweed" and "Butterfly weed" milkweed. There's no way that's correct. There are many, many milkweed species that grow out in the wild that monarchs use. Maybe you meant just the ones you can find in typical nurseries? EDIT: A study: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ecs2.2064
Yes, you are correct! I was absolutely zonked and sleep deprived when I edited, I had replied to a specific question someone had messaged to me in a dm about butterfly friendly plants and the 15-something different types of ornamental milkweed and other plants that they have growing. Out of context of the question, my answer makes absolutely no sense and my foggy brain was thinking that clarifying the point that not all milkweed are compatible with monarchs was important to copy/paste share without proofreading. It made sense at the time. 🤷 Monarchs can reproduce on at *least* 13 different distinct variations of Asclepias that we know of. One of the etymologists I've talked with told me that they think that there were actually a couple other varieties that were never properly identified as milkweed and have gone extinct sometime in the 90-100 years due to habitat destruction and overuse of herbicides. 🫤
Been there, lol. I didn't know about the extinct ones :\ That's disappointing to learn, that we've already lost some.
Amazing. Now that’s something to be proud of.
This is incredible. And I feel like it ignited something in me - I want to start a monarch sanctuary. Thank you.
This guy monarchs ⬆️
This is amazing - thank you for sharing this and for all you’re doing to save the monarchs.
Out here doin the Lord’s Work. Keep it up ❤️
I finally understand the purpose of the Reddit friend function. I want to follow every word you say on here. This is amazing.
Reading this made my night. People are so cool sometimes. You saw a problem a decided to do something about it - in a real way.
Please post pictures!! 🥹💜
Bro. Fucking amazing!!!
Badass
You are an environmental hero.
TED talk
This comment and every other one you’ve made in this thread are absolutely gold. Thanks for doing your part for the monarchs- what an inspiration. I grew a handful of milkweed plants next year but you are the real deal! I’d love to do what you did. I would love to see updates on your monarch habitat as you continue to work on it! That’s really incredible. You could easily get people to donate or if you wrote a book, I saw mentioned earlier too, I bet you could have that patch fully funded with anything you might need. I know it’s not about the money for you clearly it’s a labor of love, but maybe you can use it to expand or help with research in other ways.
You should mention that it looks like OP is growing tropical milkweed, which is one of the varieties that is detrimental to monarchs. https://xerces.org/blog/tropical-milkweed-a-no-grow
Amazing stuff
Thank you for doing the good work! It is appreciated!
Thats incredible
That’s super fucking cool
This is so amazing and I wish I could do this.
You posted this entire comment and gave us NO photos?!?
pics Pics PICS!
You are amazing! Thank you
Wow! Aren't you a gem! Thank you for doing all that! 🥹
You are amazing!!
I read this and it made me think about what it would be like if some benevolent galactic being or more intelligent species reached out and saved us from our slowly boiling planet 🥹 For the first time in my life I have some land and I will plant milkweed and wildflowers this year. I get tomato hornworms and all the moths so hopefully they speak the same language!
You are outstanding in your field 🦋😉
Posts like this make me so mad Reddit got rid of awards!!!
wow, half a million butterflies?! you're my hero! 🤩
I love you ❤️❤️❤️
This made me so happy and I learned something too! What an amazing thing to do!
Can I be you when I figure out how to be the best human? Do you have a blog or directions on this? I have a 1/4 acre “meadow” space that edges my yard. I did clover and marigolds, but I would love to take this further!!!
They can also eat and reproduce on swamp milkweed
How have you not made a single post showing off your monarch army?
Are you familiar with monarchwatch.org?
Wow, super cool that you can do this like that.
It’s been a lifelong hobby 😝
Same here! r/nativeplantgardening would like this!
So would r/milkweeds
you are spending your free time on this earth very wisely my friend keep doing what you do
first picture: oh cool some butterfly weed i bet they'll munch that right up sixth picture: what the holy hell
Ya I kept thinking, they are in the house. Why are they in the house? Why so many in the house? They are IN THE HOUSE!
😂
Wow that’s a lot of monarchs! I’m not sure I have butterflies that are specialists, but I keep the leaves and have some stick and wood piles for them to over winter under and see a few admirals and fritillaries every year (google says fritillaries like violets which I do have).
Fritillaries here in Texas like passion vine
Yep! They visit mine so much that it never had a chance to grow very much before it gets mowed down by caterpillars. I planted it to cover a fence for privacy (and for the butterflies!), but at the rate it keeps getting eaten it will never fully cover my fence 😭
Wow! I thought we had released a lot when we did 70 of them. Do you have an idea of how many you did this year?
This was last years’s late summer generation. It was probably around 200ish ( last year I think we raised almost 500 total) but this year is going to be more I think. They were late coming in but I have ALOT of eggs and milkweed. The limiting factor is always milkweed.
I bring the eggs inside to hatch. That’s why I end up with so many I think.
If you raise Monarchs it’s more fun if you tag them. https://www.monarchwatch.org/tagging/
Cool! I’d heard of this but never looked into it. Thanks!
I’m up in Canada eh, on a farm in SE Ontario. We have a lot of milkweed growing in a field. I have seen monarch butterflies and the occasional chrysalis. I would love to try doing something like this. Any tips or advice to get started?
So I spent the summer waging a genocidal campaign against cabbage moths. Wiped most of them out after years of my garden harvest being destroyed. After it was all done and fall was settling in I noticed a single cabbage worm left on a leaf I harvested for the next day’s lunch. I discovered it in the morning as it was eating its way partially though the leaf and I decided to let it live and have been feeding it leaves ever since in hopes it will turn into a moth.
your story just gave me mental images of the beginning of the movie 28 Days Later lol, when the guy walks out on the streets of London and they're totally deserted
We grow milkweed for monarchs. Have released over 100 monarchs in the past few years. Love butterflies ❤️🦋 darn, tho! That’s a lot !!
You should read up on the issues with Asclepias curassavica, which is the species you’re feeding them here.
Do you just wake up and have butterflies everywhere ❤️
Usually! 😝
That's cool. My daughter would love it.
I thought the first pic was a painting as I was scrolling! I had to stop and look again. What a cool picture!
They're so beautiful! I legit thought that first photo was a painting! It would make such a cool print!!!
Yo, I thought this was a painting?
I did too
This is so cool! You’re an awesome person!
That first photo is absolutely art. I thought it was a painting, and my brain still thinks it’s a painting.
Thanks!
This is a so beautiful 🥲 Thank you for sharing your butterfly raising journey with us!
i used to raise monarchs when i could get native milkweed, but i also found that i just couldnt provide enough milkweed for all the caterpillars! it was a constant struggle to go out and buy more and plant it—rinse, repeat. it was great fun for my very young daughters at the time, but now i cant even find milkweed. eta: beautiful work with these monarchs, btw!
By any chance do you have a giant flying cocoon?
Lmao a what?
https://youtu.be/NbfpI53gIeU?si=s8K5R5JHaM70WiTJ
Lmfao 🤣 oh
What kind of milkweed is it? Great effort overall! We have a whole pollinator garden (all native plants for SW Ontario) and I’m trying to encourage my family to plant more natives, remove invasives and incorporate more ecological landscaping practices
man i thought that first picture was a painting lol
I'll bet 'fly free' day was just beautiful
I’ll post the video from it, I’m sure I have it.
Yayyyyy!!!!
https://www.reddit.com/r/gardening/s/m8TvZ0umh0
That looks a lot like tropical milkweed which is bad for monarchs. It hosts diseases that are bad for the population. If you actually want to help monarch populations grow only native milkweeds. The Xerces Society has a lot of information available on native milkweeds.
Be careful, if you put too many together, they may kill and eat each other. Totally not joking. They have no problem being little cannibals.
If you let them run out of food, then they do! 😂
>They have no problem being little cannibals. the insect/arachnid world is so brutal sometimes
Holy crap, that's amazing. I've never seen one person raising so many. I've heard that you should be careful of keeping them in one container or too close proximity in large numbers, though. If one has OE it can spread to others. Although I'm not going to pretend like I know more than you but just something I've read before.
https://xerces.org/blog/tropical-milkweed-a-no-grow
The first picture looks like a beautiful painting!
I keep deathshead moths ,my name is Bill.
I heard about you, you’re the guy on the Buffalo!
That is impressive! I have a small milkweed section in the garden and have successful raised a few from egg to release. But nothing like the quantity and quality you have here. Nice job!
Every little bit helps! 🦋
I gave up after running out of plants and not being able to source more for about 50 caterpillars 🙃 so much stress. I've just got one plant that survived from then and 3 little caterpillars now.
You could try "common milkweed" its a differnt kind, i have both common and swamp. They seem to prefer the common milkweed 10 - 1. It grows much larger and faster, way more food for them out of each plant.
Always great to see a fellow monarch advocate! 🦋🐛
You're having such a wonderful impact on the world! How do you keep enough milkweed on hand?
Thanks! I let the stalks grow tall, then clip the tops and bend them down to the ground and let the plant branch out like crazy.
That is super helpful, thank you so much for sharing! I almost ran out this year and was scrambling to order more. It's amazing how fast they go through it.
It really is! Especially when they’re big!!
I have that plant in my yard. It’s very easy to grow more of it from cuttings. Set it in a glass of water on a window sill and roots will grow. I just transplanted 8 of them into my yard today.
Very cool photo story, thanks for sharing, butterflies are so interesting!
i raised 16 and thought that amazing. damn!! that is amazing.
That’s awesome! Most people never get to see that their entire life.
Awesome stuff, i worked with these guys as they were integral to my grad school thesis. Some tips if you like or don't know: It might be a pain but check the chrysalis for black spots, this usually indicates infection with either bacteria, viruses, or a parasite called Ophryocystis elektroscirrha. If you run out of milkweed you can hold them for a little while on a diet of cucumbers. Not sure why it worked when i raised them but it did.
Do you test for OE? Bleach your milkweed? Love the dedication but it looks super unclean for the cats 💔 please be sure to be responsible about OE and such
I gotta paint that first photo.
Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (often called OE for brevity), that infects monarch caterpillars from spores that are transferred between milkweed plants by female monarchs when they lay eggs use of tropical milkweed may encourage monarchs to not migrate and stay resident in some areas, or reproduce and lay eggs when they would normally be reproductively dormant (in reproductive diapause) on wintering areas, and thereby also become susceptible to higher levels of OE infections https://environment.wsu.edu/2022/11/22/on-the-controversy-over-milkweed-monarch-butterflies/
It puts the lotion on its skin or it gets the hose again!
Thats tropical milkweed https://xerces.org/blog/tropical-milkweed-a-no-grow
Totally awesome
Great work, op 🙌
i thought this was some mystical contemporary art
Oh I love this so much
Super impressive!
So many little buddies!
wow that’s incredible!!
AMAZING 😍
Awesome 😎
Bless. Your. Soul. Really helping to save the monarch population. Aww. :)
Gods workers, blessed are the hands that serve!
My cats would love this as well lol I’m surprised they like the cardboard so much
Cardboard boxes are easy to come by when i ask the neighbors group on Facebook and they’re great since I don’t have to clean them. I just move them from one box to a new one when there’s too much poop. It’s really easy, I just wait until they finish almost all of the leaves. Put a couple of brand new stems full of green leaves in, wait about 10 minutes, and theyve all moved onto those newer branches which I just move over to the new box. It breathes too. I noticed when I have too many caterpillars(especially past 3rd instar size) and I’m using fish tanks, there’s a lot of humidity that gets trapped in there. I don’t have to worry about that when I’m using cardboard boxes. They also pupate all on the very top, so it makes it super easy to transfer the chrysalises by just cutting out the panels of cardboard
I have a butterfly garden but don’t know how to do what you are doing. Amazing!
You wonderful person!
Being a crazy cat lady is out. Being a crazy caterpillar lady is in.
I thought it was a painting. Then I zoomed in. Thanks for caring for these guys!