I've never seen as many monarchs as we had this year and VERY late. I'm In Huntsville, TX and they didn't leave until we got a north wind and temp went down at night into the 30s.

Very cool! I'd love to see that some day.

Karen

Interesting! Love your picture! Is it taken very recently? I'm amazed at your lovely echinaceas because I'm in Maine and we are under 2 feet of snow already! Funny that the monarchs would be late as winter set in early in a lot of places

I was checking some areas of my yard last weekend. Wanted to see what got nipped. I was surprised and a little dismayed to see that 2 of my milkweed plants are still blooming. They're both Asclepias curassavica plants. One is Silky Gold and it actually has some seed pods on it.

I'm thinking that I should cut both plants.back. Opinions anyone?

These pictures were taken on Monday.

JHeirloomSeeds said:Interesting! Love your picture! Is it taken very recently? I'm amazed at your lovely echinaceas because I'm in Maine and we are under 2 feet of snow already! Funny that the monarchs would be late as winter set in early in a lot of places

Someone by me said that there were tons of Monarchs this fall. Big balls of them in the trees like I've only seen once in my life. It is odd though, that up North here, they were a month and a half earlier than normal, instead of later like the OP in Texas observed.

So I'm still hoping for advice about my two A. curassivca that are still blooming. It's so late in the year and if even one cat would be there, two plants wouldn't provide enough food. Or I could be wrong.

Anybody?

I'm in zone 9 south Louisiana & just saw a small Monarch feeding on my Silky Red & Gold yesterday Dec.1st. It seemed late for a sighting but I've seen 3 or 4 in my back yard alone in the last 3 weeks since we had our 1st temp dip into mid 30's. My plants are on the south side of my brick house against the wall protected from the North wind & they weren't phased like a few annuals were. I never cut my plants & just let nature take it's course. Later in about Feb. when their foliage is dead I cut them to 6" & they return from roots in March/April.
I talk to my butterflies welcoming them to my yard & proclaiming their beauty. I told these last few to live & fly home to rest & return next Spring. I believe they heard & understood & will return!

I definitely had more monarchs than usual. I'm in Fort Worth, TX and I saw a recently hatched (I think) either Queen or Gulf Fritillary end of last week, and we have had a hard freeze. But I planted more than usual too, a lot of Asclepius tuberosa, Gregg's mistflower, fall boneset, and echinacea

I had tuberosa but the squirrels got to it. grrr.

My Gregg's mistflower was late to bloom this year and didn't have many blooms. Could be lack of sun. It's near some large oaks that kept their leaves longer than usual. They're dropping leaves like crazy now but are not anywhere near naked yet.

I wonder what it would take to convince the City to compost leaves? Maybe I should start a campaign. Or get someone else to do it.

I had a lot in early november... almost never see any at all here.

They visited the lantana and cosmos.



I wouldn't worry about the asclepias.... I actually moved some potted tropical butterfly weed over to the plants they were nectaring at...figuring I could always bring babies indoors with the pepper plants... nobody was interested.

I'm not convinced of the need to cut the host plants down during the migration.

I know there's an ongoing debate about growing A. curassivica. One issue is that late season plants encourage the Monarchs to stick around rather than continuing south. I don't know and don't want to start a debate. Just saying.