...it's called 'milk weed', but it is really something everyone should want to have growing in their yard, or if no yard, in a little pot by the door. It is the 'host plant' for monarch butterflies, the only place they lay eggs for the next gen. of butterflies. If there is no milk weed, there will be no monarchs.
There are a lot of things that have diminished the population: pesticides, agricultural chemicals that kill everything when sprayed on the right-of-way and edges of farm land. Farmers turning more land into hay fields. Subdivisions being clear-cut and developed killing off wild flowers that include the host plant the monarchs need, both for food and for leaving a deposit that will mature into caterpillars and become more butterflies.
I bought some plants at the Botanical Gardens sale, but they did not survive the winter. I did harvest quite a few seeds, so will try to grow some in pots. I have an 'eagle eye' for wild milk weed, uncultivated, growing where it is likely to get mowed down before the cycle can complete. So I notice it in lots of places where I would like to stop and dig. But rarely do.
There is a place down the street along the edge of city property I have recently seen some of the bright orange blooms. I am going with my blue surveyor's tape to mark the plants, tie on a bit down low, to dig and relocate when it goes dormant in the fall. My understanding is that it is hard to transplant: but it will likely get mowed down by the tractors otherwise. So I don't feel badly about taking the chance, if I can rescue even half the ones I've seen in glorious bloom, awaiting the migration. They will be on their way to Mexico soon, to spend the winter, and I want to be a good 'stop over' as they are traveling south. Sort of like stopping at'Stuckey'' for a pecan log motoring along on old Highway 41. Remember those hideous yellow billboards advertising along the road?
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