February 25, 2020
Time to Plant Milkweed!
Time to Plant Your Milkweed! By Bob Sussman – (all photos are mine- you’re welcome to use them if you just ask)
The monarchs have both a fall and spring mating season and they will be looking around for milkweed to lay their eggs. The native milkweed goes dormant over winter and starts growing again at just the right time. Ours are just breaking dormancy and are ready to be planted out for the monarch to lay their eggs and the caterpillars to eat!
The narrow leaf milkweed just breaking dormancy and growing quickly so they’re be enough to fee the hungry monarch caterpillars.
When the caterpillars get really big (about 10 days to two weeks) they’ll crawl away to make their chrysalis. These can be very hard to find and in the weirdest places too. These are in one of our propagation areas. The caterpillar on the left (in the “J” position ) is about to make a chrysalis.
As the caterpillar changes into a butterfly (metamorphosis) inside the chrysalis the chrysalis becomes clear.
Soon, in another few days the new butterfly will emerge from the chrysalis.
All this excitement begins in another few weeks if you have milkweed plants in your garden!
