We tried to lure monarch butterflies with showy milkweed (Asclepius speciosa). It grew and grew and then grew some more. Finally it was close to 6 feet high but it never bloomed.
This is the closest it came to blooming.
The rain storms would blow it over and I would straighten it up and finally staked it. The lower leaves started to die and finally only the top 20% was still green. I cut it down and only then noticed three large monarch caterpillars on the underside of several of the leaves. It turns out that one of my neighbors has a monarch butterfly nursery for caterpillars and chrysalis's. I took the caterpillars across the street and hopefully we can show some progeny after awhile. We shall see.
No comments:
Post a Comment