Milkweeds Doing Their Job

Milkweeds, of course, are the food source for monarch butterfly caterpillars. The several species of milkweed are pretty weedy. I've planted one of the least ugly, Asclepias tuberosa, the orange "butterfly weed". I've never seen any monarch caterpillars on them, however. 

But I've also had the weedier common milkweed, Asclepias syriaca, crop up as a volunteer on my shady, steep bank along the road in front. It would prefer more sun than that location has, and so it is only on the edges, leaning over the road and the steps to my front door. It is quite unattractive, even in bloom. This year, it really went to town, and I was pleased to see an excellent crop of monarch caterpillars on the plants. The plants were completely stripped, and I hope there were enough of them to feed the caterpillars all the way through pupating - this is probably why it's recommended a butterfly garden have a sizeable patch, not just one or two plants. Encouraged, when the caterpillars were gone, I cut off some of the seed pods and tossed them further up the bank, hopefully to see more plants.