Sunday, June 15, 2014

Milkweed

When I was a kid, I loved playing with milkweed. At the end of the summer, when everything was getting boring, the milkweed pods would dry out and break open, and you could blow the little puffy white seed parachutes around and watch them take to the sky.

This is a picture of common milkweed, requested by one of my three readers:
Trust me, even the most clueless gardener can get these to grow. All you have to do is drop the seeds into some dirt. After a year or two, you'll have a good stand of it.

When my milkweed blooms, I'll post a picture of the blossoms. They smell really good.

I didn't know until lately that monarch butterflies love milkweed. Considering the pressures facing monarchs, I do suggest you plant some milkweed in your yard, if you don't already have it. To grow well it needs full sun, but mine is in part shade. It gets over-tall and falls over, but not until it has produced seed pods.

If you want some certified common milkweed seeds from Johnson Nurseries of Snobville, just let me know now and remind me in the fall. I will mail you some seeds. You can scatter them in the fall or the spring. I've done both.

And remember, a weed is any plant that is growing where you don't want it to grow. So in this case, milkWEED is a misnomer. I want it.

5 comments:

Mary said...

Um, we have our own kinda milkweed here. I'll let you know if we need some imported stuff tho. It's a little more spindly looking than that, but this IS the desert and it manages to bloom in bad dirt with no water--------wait, that's probably your yard too.

yellowdoggranny said...

remind me to remind you to remind me about the milkweed.

Anonymous said...

We're in a condo, so I can't plant it here. (The condo-nazi would go ballistic.) but we are moving next spring, and maybe after that I can plant stuff. We are moving to Washington state, unless the election forces us to leave the country....
but, now that I know what it looks like, I'll keep a look-out for it. Thanks,
--Kim

greekwitch said...

When it is time show us how you play with the seeds. I do n't think i have ever seen this plant!

JaAnBe said...

My mother always said a weed is a plant for which a use has not yet been found. I have a little stand of milkweed come up in the strip between sidewalk and street. The bumblebees seem to like it too. I even saw a 20-something walk by after the seed pods had formed on the 5 ft. stalks and exclaim "freaky".