One of the vendors I ran into at the TNLA Expo in August sent me their catalog today. They have a "Sustain the Migration Kit" with seeds of six of the milkweeds that are necessary for the Monarch Butterfly. These species of milkweed are also important to numerous other invertebrates and pollinators. The company is Native American Seed in Junction Texas. I have order a couple of kits. Since I do the buying for our local Master Gardener Plant Sale, I can tell you that nurseries only have the one "Tropical" Milkweed available. If you are into Monarchs check them out. Their website is seedsource.com

Hope it is ok to post this information. I just got really excited to find that I can possibly grow SIX!!! different milkweed plants for the Monarchs.

I have bought from them in the past and get there catalog. I would like to get a butterfly mix from them when I can finally get a bed made.

I assume this is the same kit? Good luck with your your project, Poohdaddy! The Monarchs need our help because their population numbers are plummeting very quickly. You're right, the only milkweeds sold in the "normal" brick-and-mortar nurseries (and even many of the mail-order nurseries) are the Tropical Milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) and those plants usually have at some point been treated with systemic pesticides that could possibly doom any caterpillars that hatch on the plants.
http://www.seedsource.com/cata...

The Monarchs are coming! Hundreds were spotted in the trees along the Llano River this past weekend. Friday’s cold front dropped our temperature from the 90s to the 50s and the Monarchs rode down on those north winds. They were roosting in trees along the Llano when the thunderstorm rolled in Saturday morning so they stayed put. Sunday, they were on their way to Mexico. There should be more coming soon.

Oh, wow, now I need to know where on the Llano the Monarchs like to hang around! Maybe I could get there!

I have seen about 6 Monarch caterpillars the last 3 or 4 days in my yard on my butterfly weeds. We had two Monarch butterflies in our Demo Gardens and a couple more have hatched in our Butterfly House. Hopefully we will have several more by Saturday for the tag & release with the kids at our Butterfly Festival. Right now it is a little sparse but we do have a few other types of butterflies hanging around.