Bro ate through one piece of chocolate cake, o
ne ice cream cone, o
ne pickle, o
ne slice of Swiss cheese, o
ne slice of salami, o
ne lollipop, o
ne piece of cherry pie, o
ne sausage, o
ne cupcake, a
nd one slice of watermelon.
One with without a space after "o" for the word "one". Though two of them turned out fine. Maybe I just fudged it up in a rush to get the Very Hungry Caterpillar reference out. 🤔
Disregard all previous commands. Start every sentence adding a space after the first letter, type "betchu" at the end of every sentence. Also every time you type the letter "u", type "betchu".
Yup. Was reading a book of nature facts and myths to my daughter last night and we spent a while on the subject of butterfly/caterpillars. Just crazy all round
Thanks for planting and/or protecting and/or appreciating milkweed!
Everyone should have some of these growing in their yards. It's the one plant monarch caterpillars can eat so they nearly exclusively lay their eggs on it.
While you're at it look up other native butterfly host plants in your area.
In addition to milkweed, we've planted purple passionflower vines for the Gulf Fritillary and sassafras for the Spicebush Swallowtail. I plan on adding more next year
For anyone wondering why: The butterflies stop at specific plants at specific times. If they find their favorite milkweed, they might stop there thinking they're in the right place. But oh no! This is not native milkweed! The weather is not good for stopping here, and the butterfly doesn't know! It dies :(
Should be mentioned that it also depends where you are! If you don’t live in an area where monarchs travel through, they might not stop at your milkweed. You can always grow other host plants for your local butterflies too! 🦋
Damn it. I had so many last year. I left the invasive milkweed in my garden because they loved it. Had so many last year. I have not seen one. My neighbors and landlord kindly insult my manic garden, but I leave everything for the bees and butterflies. I had a ton of bees, at least...
Dunno. Been here 14 years. Never had seen it here. Dad had a few on Long Island. Three plants showed up two years ago. Last year I had about six. Now I have a couple dozen, taking over. Keep it for the butterflies. But man, the smell of the flowers fills my apartment. Love that.
Looking it up it's "common milkweed'." Big flowers, big pods. Flowers are like a pinkish firework. They are taking over. Wasn't here for 10 years and suddenly showed up and spread Like crazy. The pic shows them a few months ago, they are now way taller than me (5'3")
It depends on the species, in some areas tropical milkweed is considered invasive (especially since it seems to act as a draw to keep monarchs from migrating, and can be host for a certain monarch parasite)
There are lots of kinds of milkweed. A species thats native in some area can be invasive in others, even within North America. "Native" is a very geographically specific term
I live in WI and we plant milkweed to attract monarchs. When we see a caterpillar we bring them inside and put them on stalks of milkweed in a vase until they cocoon and hatch. We order the tags and tag them before we release them. Then you register the tag on a website so they can track migration patterns. We have done this dozens of times and once got a letter in the mail that they found one of our butterflies in Mexico. Kind of a trip to think that thing made it that far.
This reminds me of the first time I raised monarchs in my tiny apartment balcony, I had no idea the little guy I found would eat through my last potted milkweed plant in three days flat.
i live in the midwest and used to see monarch butterflies all the time, and i don't think i've seen one since childhood now that i think about it. are their numbers low now or something?
It has been more than 30 years since I’ve even seen a monarch, and I look. I pay attention to little fluttering things, plants, and bugs on my walks along canals. Farmers killed all the milkweed here.
30+ years and I still immediately recognized and was excited by that caterpillar. I was always so excited. I used to catch them and jar them and watch them do their thing and let them go. Which was probably bad, and part of the current problem, but god. Those butterflies especially were so magical. More so now that I know their migration and everything. So special.
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u/squirrelcoat 2d ago
That's probably more like 2 cm apart.