Thanks Joe.
I was glad to see my swamp milkweed and purple milkweed coming back this year. They like tropical milkweed too but it's an annual and I haven't seen any for sale anywhere this spring so far.

christie,

All mine is doing well this year

Where can I buy milkweed? Have not seen it anywhere but then again, I am new to the area.

Found this chewing away on the milkweed today. There were three or four a week ago, but I guess they have all cocooned except this one.

Sandy

Or should I say they have gone into chrysalis stage. this This should be the first hatching, at least a couple more before the fall one.

Sandy

Sharbear try Westwood Gardens for butterfly weed. There are four locations in the Bella Vista/Rogers/NW Arkansas area, they should have some.

Sandy

I think there is more milkweed around than you think. There is a weedy vine that is all over Joplin in the alleys. I have it and encourage it because the small flowers smell nice. It is an invasive weed and hard to keep out of waste spaces.

Here is a link that might be useful: honeyvine milkweed

Nice Mosswitch!

Helen, it may seem that way, but you need to look at the overall picture. The Monarchs have lost over 60% of their habitat to farming, which spray the important milkweed with chemicals to kill it. When you take the entire US that's huge and it's why Monarchs have went from hundreds of millions to maybe 30 million today, which is probably not sustainable. Everything is. weed, it's how you perceive it. Monarchs perceive it as food, I like Monarchs, grew up with them, want my kids to grow up with them, so it's not a weed, no more than your front lawn and Fescue which is a huge invasive weed, except in Missouri. The little patches of milkweed that we create in butterfly gardens might help just enough, what would be even better and help. great deal is if you call your state representative or Senator and tell them to leave the areas along highways uncut or unmowed during Monarch season and to plant milkweed there, this would help a lot.

What I am saying is that I allow this vining milkweed because it has a lovely smell even though it has weedy habits. Others may already have climbing milkweed and not know it. Anyone growing the honey vine needs to know it may pop up where they don't want it. Compared to my other invasive vines, it is not a problem. My friend however has a privet hedge and it is a pain pulling it out of that. I have the pink milkweed coming up all over the place. I allow it to spread. It is nice to have a plant that doesn't have to be watered or cared for.

It IS possible to transplant butterfly weed from the wild into a garden but difficult to dig the very, very deep taproot.

In some areas, you cannot transplant anything growing along a roadway so check the law in your state.

Here in the West Plains/Pomona area, butterfly weed grows in fields and most cattle ranchers are glad to see it gone. The conservation department office in West Plains uses butterfly weed as a landscaping feature and it sure is pretty.

My swamp milkweed and butterfly weed are blooming now. I only had one purple milkweed (asclepias purpurascens) that survived and this was its first year to bloom. I loved the color, very showy.

The ordinary pink milkweed has a pleasant smell not honeysuckle quality but nice. I would like to have the purple; did you order it from a wild flower nursery? If I am not mistaken the milkweed that is not supposed to be hardy lived through the winter here.

I grew the purple milkweed from seed I ordered from a wild flower nursery, don't remember which one. I had four seedlings but only one lived to the end of summer. I looked at it today to see if it looked like it might set seed but nope. I need to dig though my seed box and see if there were any left overs from last year.
I'm very surprised if your tropical milkweed made it through the winter since it was so cold this year. It's the prettiest I think and seems to be the Monarchs' favorite. There are some strains that are a little more hardy than others so if yours acted like a perennial, remember me if you're able to collect seeds this summer. : )

Milkweed attracts lots of bugs. So far I have not seen a monarch. These insects want nectar so the plants are still attractive. When they munch the leaves later, the plants don't look as nice.

It's another year and it's more important than ever to plant

Milkweed to help save the Monarchs

It's that time of year again, a massive storm killed off millions of monarchs in Mexico --- they need are help more than ever

this is a very important plant in the Eco system

Monarchs here early, already have eggs on milkweed ..even the small ones just popping up a couple inches above ground. Strong southerly winds blew Monarchs from Mexico to about an hour north past their most northernly limit which is about Branson for the Super Monarchs which are the same ones that migrated last fall into Mexico. These Monarchs only have about one week left to live as they scurry to find milkweed to lay eggs for the first generation of the year.

Plant Milkweed for the very endangered Monarch butterfly...that tropical storm in Texas last fall really hurt their numbers

Joe, I wintersowed some milkweed seed this year. It's up but still small, I have most of those other plants that are mentioned in this post. Don't forget to plant some Maypop for the Gulf Frits. Yes, I get them here in NE OK. They have had a program going at the botanical garden in Tulsa in past years. Not sure if that's still going on. Also I grew fennel last year and I had a lot of those Monarch caterpillars on it. With fennel, IF they leave you anything, you can use it in cooking or just enjoy the fragrance. But usually they strip the plant down to bare stems. They can be found in dill umbels, too.

I'll be sure to. :-)

Rock, I did plant some Maypop this year.

PJ,

the least invasive would be like a marsh or swamp milkweed.

Monarch population is way down from 2019 Spring..please plant milkweed and late blooming flowers for sept and oct ..so Monarchs migrating have something to nectar on.

https://monarchwatch.org/blog/2020/03/13/monarch-population-status-42/