This is only one of many milkweed plants that are hosts to the Monarchs and Queen butterflies. They are also a wonderful nectar plant for the bees, and other butterflies in our yards. This one is our common Asclepias Curassavica, Mexican Milkweed and is a perennial in Texas.

Another here is the 'Silky Gold" cultivar Asclepias curassavica. It isn't winter hardy for me in N Tx.

Swamp milkweed
I am not sure why it is called swamp , it grows along with everything else in the garden and requires no special care.

And must be very tasty,
The cat's prefer this to regular milkweed.

unfortunately it seems to be well liked by others too


Sharing with aphids YUCK

Oh yes those aphids cover my Asclepias curassavica. I'll be planting more yarrow for the lady bugs to eat those yucky aphids al around the asclepias. In fact I saw my first ladybug early this week when we had one warm sunny day! Maybe that's a sign spring will be here early! I wish!!

I've got a ladybug in my house...didn't have the heart to put it outside during the cold!

I know what you mean, Linda Love those little ladies!

so what do you feed a ''house ladybug''?

I was just outside in the backyard and noticed a few Monarch Caterpillar's devouring the Asclepias curassavica ("Scarlet Milkweed".)

I am so excited ... it's the first time I've ever had the Cat's on the Milkweed in my yard!

Yea Lin!!!! Love seeing the monarchs anywhere!

Sheila, I agree ... I love seeing any Butterfly and it's even more exciting seeing the Caterpillars! We had so many butterflies last year but this year they have been sporadic at best. I wonder if it has anything to do with the extreme cold we had here in Florida last winter?

Not sure what but all over the country we have less butterflies this year. I sure hope they will rebound next year. I miss my garden buddies!

Did y'all have a colder than usual winter like we did here?

I need to get some small envelops but I do have some extra seeds for the common and the showy Milkweeds if anyone wants any.

In Texas, I'm pretty sure the predators are picking off eggs and cats at a faster rate this year...also the butterflies themselves also. During Severe to Exceptional drought, "prey" becomes scarce and hard to find. I've seen the wasps doing their searches of plant foliage more than usual. Wasp populations have dwindled. I've found quite a few paper wasps drowned in water container and normally that doesn't happen with that kind of wasp. I figure they get so weak from lack of food, they just can't fly off after lighting on the water like they usually do, so they drown! During the summer of 2009, all the insects and lizards vanished for a while.I would walk around and see nothing alive...except the birds I was providing for and my cats. Oh, I think I see a little rain going on outside...I remember we used to get that stuff before.

Yea for rain Linda...hope it was more than a sprinkle.

We've had almost 4/10"...not so much, but we can't turn down any amount!