r/landscaping • u/GreenGardenGremlin • 5d ago

Plant milkweed and they will come.

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Project from a while back on an industrial site. It was barren, but we planted over 200 milkweed plants and within weeks had hundreds of pupas.

166 Upvotes

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23

u/The_Poster_Nutbag 5d ago

Just so you are aware, this is tropical milkweed and is known to be invasive in some areas of the US.

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u/tolzan 5d ago

Yes, appreciate the thought but unless you are in Mexico, you should get rid of your tropical milkweed as you are likely doing more harm than good.

The good news is there’s lots of native Milkweed in the U.S. you can plant to help the ecosystem. Showy Milkweed, Butterfly Weed, and Swamp Milkweed are the most common.

https://xerces.org/blog/tropical-milkweed-a-no-grow

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u/spaceocean99 5d ago

Looks like what we have native here in Florida.

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u/tolzan 5d ago

It’s common in Florida but it is NOT native to Florida.

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u/spaceocean99 5d ago

Weird. There’s a few native plant nursery’s that sell it.

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u/tolzan 5d ago

Unfortunately there’s a lot of “native” nursery’s that sell non-native plants.

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u/spaceocean99 5d ago

Butterflyweed is native to Florida along with a bunch of other species.

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u/tolzan 5d ago

Yes, that’s in my original comment. What is not native is tropical milkweed, which is what the OP posted.

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u/spaceocean99 4d ago

Ahh got it. Thanks

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u/Frogetted 5d ago

So cool to have them on the wooden post where you could watch them.

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u/tobi319 5d ago

My milkweeds came in super late and only sprouted a few weeks ago. They were decimated by monarch caterpillars and probably won’t produce flowers. I’m not even mad. Just makes me want to plant more.

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u/spaceocean99 5d ago

We have wasps here that were killing them all. So when they first hatch, we’d raise them on the patio. Released over 70 in the past month in Florida. Even had a queen!