Just happened to look out the window and saw a couple of beautiful monarch butterflies flitting in and around the milkweed garden. Actually, they are enjoying the entire yard-garden playfully dancing with each other mid-air then picking a plant, sometimes landing on the flowers, sometimes the leaves, so I know they are about to lay eggs. They only lay on milkweed.
Plants range from 2 to 5 feet tall now. They are medium wispy, surrounded by large marigold plants and a medium sized variety of sunflowers and similarly tall-sized flowers to aid as a homing beacon and attract the butterflies. I have maybe 20 plants that survived rom the 100 we started with.
Plants that are in mostly shade are shortest, plants in mostly sun are medium. The ones in part sun, part shade thrived the most and grew upwards of 5 feet. It may also have been the homemade compost I planted them in. I added drip sprays in the center of the clustered plants.
One plant in full sun has already burst open new pods and they are spreading all over. We're fine with that as they are easy to spot and pick (or transplant) if we don't want them in a certain area, otherwise we are content in allowing them to thrive where they may. I will collect some seed to sprout indoors again in case they don't germinate outdoors on their own.
The flowers are small clusters and range from all yellow to reddish orange, and attract a lot of bees.
Have a look at the below link to see what the flower looks like and get a starter kit if you wish. They are an attractive addition to a flower garden. I'm thinking of planting autumn bulbs in the same spot to have year round growth.
http://www.glorious-butterfly.com/milkweed-family-of-plants.html
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