June 13, 2025 • 54 mins
In this episode of the Good Growing Podcast, horticulture educators Chris Enroth and Ken Johnson dive deep into the fascinating world of milkweed—also known by its genus name, Asclepias. Whether you're a native plant enthusiast, pollinator advocate, or just curious about why this "weed" is the National Garden Bureau’s Plant of the Year, this episode is packed with insights.
Watch us on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Qw24JnUOitQ
Skip to what you want to know:
00:46 Hey Ken! How do you say Asclepias?
01:28 What's in a name? A scientific name!
03:08 What is Asclepias (milkweed), and how many species of Asclepias are out in the world?
04:11 History of Asclepias.
07:37 Uses of milkweed outside of the garden
09:30 The negative image of milkweed in the agricultural community
12:02 Milkweeds for the garden. Listing the species of Asclepias native to Illinois. https://dnr.illinois.gov/education/wildaboutpages/wildaboutplants/wildaboutplantsmilkweeds.html
13:28 The most common milkweeds we often see in a home landscape
15:17 Our favorite milkweeds that we grow
21:32 Key identifying characteristics of Asclepias
23:05 Milkweed and pollination: who is the best pollinator for the job?
24:41 Milkweed pollination biology https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/plantmaterials/nvpmctn12764.pdf
27:39 Milkweed toxicity and monarch butterflies
28:34 All the other insects using milkweed besides the monarch butterfly
30:16 What is the best milkweed for monarch butterflies?
30:44 https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/ecology-and-evolution/articles/10.3389/fevo.2018.00169/full Monarch Butterflies Show Differential Utilization of Nine Midwestern Milkweed Species
37:35 Talking about honeyvine milkweed
42:19 How do you harvest and grow milkweed seeds?
45:56 Transplanting milkweed
47:09 milkweed maintenance
48:45 Mowing for monarchs https://extension.illinois.edu/blogs/good-growing/2018-08-28-mowing-monarchs
52:08 Who decreed 2025 the year of Asclepias?
53:34 Thank you and see you next week!
Photos:
Ken Johnson, University of Illinois Extension
Chris Enroth, University of Illinois Extension
Chris Evans, University of Illinois Extension
5347031 - William M. Ciesla, Forest Health Management International, Bugwood.org
Contact us!
Chris Enroth: cenroth@illinois.edu
Ken Johnson: kjohnso@illinois.edu
Check out the Good Growing Blog: https://go.illinois.edu/goodgrowing
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Any products or companies mentioned during the podcast are in no way a promotion or endorsement of these products or companies.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris (00:06):
Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris
Enroth, horticulture educator atthe University of Illinois
Extension coming at you from MacOmb, Illinois, and we have got a
great show for you today. Theplant of the year. Really not
the plant, it is more like thegenus of the year. We're going
to be talking about Asclepis.
(00:29):
And then, like, if we'd writethat out, it would say Asclepus
species or SP dot dot dot dotdot dot, you know, because we're
gonna be talking about manydifferent types of Asclepus,
also known as milkweed. And youknow I'm not doing this by
myself. I am joined as alwaysevery single week by
horticulture educator KenJohnson in Jacksonville. Hey,
Ken.
Ken (00:48):
Hello, Chris. So is it Asclepus or Asclepius? Doesn't
matter.
Chris (00:53):
No. I read it and I don't say it. Let's I'll go with
myself as Asclepius. What do yousay?
Ken (01:01):
I I always said Asclepius.
Chris (01:03):
Oh, no. Well, just so people
Ken (01:06):
know we're talking about the
Chris (01:07):
same thing. We are talking about the same thing.
Asclepius. I mean, that soundsmore Greek. Yes.
I like that one. Fancier. Morefancier. Barkeep, give me my
Asclepius, please.
Ken (01:20):
Thank you when you say it.
Chris (01:21):
That's right. Or otherwise, it's nurse, give me
my Asclepus. So but but we'retalking about a a genus of
plants. And when we say genus,plant species are described in
in two terms. Genus, which isusually capitalized, and it it
(01:46):
encompasses multiple plants.
And then we have the specificepitaph or epiteth. How do we
say words anymore, Ken? I don'tknow. But it's the word in the
binomial naming system that oftaxonomy that we name plants. We
use Latin.
And so that specific epitaph orI always called it species,
like, even though the two initself described the species, I
(02:10):
often would say that word inthat binomial name is the
species.
Ken (02:16):
Again Technically. Mhmm. Technically, yes. The specific
epithet. Yes.
And the species is genus andspecific epithet together. At
least that's what I was told andI wanna say he got in trouble,
but got in trouble in class fornot doing it right.
Chris (02:34):
It it impacted his GPA, and so he'll never forget it.
But listen to Ken. He's smart.He knows what he's talking
about. Yes.
Those two words, they describe aspecies of plant, animal,
whatever, you know, livingthing. And today, it is as
(02:54):
asclepius, asclepus. I don't Idon't this is gonna
Ken (02:57):
be rough. Okay. Sorry. Never should have brought that
up.
Chris (03:01):
That's alright. It's alright. Milkweed. How about
that? Let's talk aboutmilkweeds.
Ken (03:08):
Let's do it. So I think so there's there's, like, 200 some
species worldwide of Yep. So Iguess we should back a little
bit. So when we say milkweed,depending on what you're
reading, milkweed may just beAsclepias Asclepias, Asclepias.
But sometimes there's also someother genera thrown in there.
(03:28):
But for today, I think we're,with the exception of one plant,
we're going to focus onAsclepias Asclepias. So there's
24 species in Illinois ofmilkweeds. And I guess in the
broad sense, I think it wasthere 19 18 or 19 if I counted
right, that are actuallyAsclepias, Asclepias, then a
couple others from from theother genera that we sometimes
(03:52):
lump in to milkweed. So and then200 species of Asclepias
worldwide. So there's and Ithink when we think about
Asclepias, especially in agarden setting, you know, we're
thinking of, like, a handful ofplants, but there are quite a
few species out there.
You may not be able to get themfor your garden, but there's
there's more than just a handfulwe typically see.
Chris (04:12):
Yes. And as Ken said, there's, you know, 200 species
worldwide. But for the mostpart, they describe this genus
as more of they call them newworld plants. So, you know,
North South American plantspecies is where they primarily
would find these growing intheir native ranges. Although
you can find, you know,milkweeds in in Europe, Asia,
(04:35):
Africa.
Like, they are they're a globalgenus, but the broad majority of
them can be found in their quoteunquote new world category of
plants. So it was something thatwas discovered by European
explorers that would bring themback to Europe to be described
then by by botanists. Andactually, one of the
(04:57):
illustrations of the kind ofpoorly faded Roanoke colony, one
of the illustrations that thatsurvived it because a lot of
other things didn't was anillustration of Asclepus
acericia. How do we say how dowe say these names, Ken? Cyrica.
(05:18):
I know it as common milkweed.But yes. Asclepus cerica cerica?
Ken (05:27):
I don't know if I've ever said it out loud.
Chris (05:29):
I know. I like, you don't say these words out loud. You
read them. Cerica, cerica,cerica. We're gonna put the text
down below here, and you canread it yourself, folks, and
make up your own mind.
Yes. Common milkweed, that wasone of the botanical drawings of
this that that we know about.And then once we got up into,
(05:54):
like, the mid seventeenhundreds, Bladnaeus then got his
hands on this, and he startedcategorizing this in his
binomial taxon taxonomic system.And the Sclepus, as it is today,
is in the dogbane family orapostinaceae. The the dogbane
(06:16):
family has a lot of other plantsin it.
Again, we're not really gonnatalk about it. We have native
ones here, like we have just thenative dogbane, which they have
very similar flower structures,similar fruiting structures. And
they were lumped together a longlong time ago, hundreds of years
ago. But it wasn't until likethe eighteen hundreds that they
(06:38):
noticed that the floweringstructures of of Asclepus
Asclepius was different thanother dogbane families. And then
they pushed all of themilkweeds, all of that genus
Asclepus out into its ownfamily, into the Asclepidaceae
family.
And that's where it remaineduntil about, you know, nineteen
(07:00):
eighties, nineteen nineties, westarted working on genetics and
looking at plants much moreclosely than we ever could
before. And that's when theynoticed like, you know,
genetically speaking, theseplants in the dogbane family and
the milkweed family, they arethey are more closely related.
They belong in the same family.So now a sclepus is a subfamily
(07:21):
in the dogbane family and theApostinaceae family. And so that
that's kind of the the his thebroader history of of milkweed
taxonomy and where it belongs inthe in the literature, so to
speak.
But but, Ken, there there'sthere's other things to know
(07:42):
about milkweed, like how we howwe use it outside of the garden.
I know one of them, you know, wehave volunteers that they're
baby boomers. Some of them, youknow, we we even have some of
the greatest generationvolunteers still kind of hanging
around there. And they tellstories about when they were
kids and they had to go and pickmilkweed pods to supply the
(08:07):
World War two effort, which thepods were primarily used in
flotation devices for the forthe navy.
Ken (08:14):
Yeah. And the fluff, whatever the technical term for
that is. I don't know what itis. I'm sure there is one. I
think that sometimes it is stillused for, like hypoallergenic
pillows, like the stuffing, forpillows and stuff.
So I think it's it's got a waxycoating on it so it kind of
repels water too, which isprobably again why you would use
(08:36):
it in any flotation device aswell. And I think indigenous
Americans would use some speciesof milkweed to make fiber
because they're kind of fibrousstems and stuff, so use that to
make rope and stuff like that.Because, there's there's
additional uses. Think some usedfor some species for medicinal
purposes. I would not recommenddoing that nowadays.
(08:58):
We probably have better things.And milkweed is toxic too. So
it's it's one of those where thedose makes the poison. So a
little bit may be helpful, buttoo much is not going to be
helpful and cause problemsitself.
Chris (09:13):
That's correct. Yes. And there was a professor at WIU. He
spent many years, you know,seeing if milkweed could be an
alternative fiber crop. And Ithink the results were pretty
promising, but milkweed has kindof a negative connotation in the
farming industry.
(09:35):
And I think the main roadblockthey were running into was just
the idea of planting milkweed onpurpose. I mean, I still run
into that when we're talkingabout you know, maybe we're
we're we're talking at a class,public, we're at a booth or a
table somewhere at an event, andsomeone asks about monarch
butterflies or pollinators, andwe we mentioned milkweed. Oh,
(09:57):
man. If you're they're a farmer,they're not too pleased about
the the suggestion of milkweedbeing planted on purpose.
Ken (10:06):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're doing pollinator presentations
and oftentimes the spouse willsay, my husband will kill me if
I plant milkweed intentionallyin our flower garden and stuff
like that. Don't run into thatas much as I used to when I
started.
I think there's a little moreacceptance now. And I think the
(10:27):
the species you pick can canhelp with that too. But yeah, I
think there's still some somepockets of resistance to to
milkweed out there.
Chris (10:35):
Yeah. Well, I think in general, milkweed, if you look
at historic weed scienceliterature, it is described as a
minor agricultural weed. Reallywas not an issue when it came
with a lot of, like, crophealth. But because of its
fibrous nature, it gummed upmachinery. It it it affected the
(10:58):
combine as it was rollingthrough the field.
And so in in some of thosemilkweeds, they can grow in
these big colonies. You imagine,like, an older generation
combine trying to move through afixed stand of milkweed pulling
the corn out of the field, mightaffect things a little bit. So
but but yeah. So I that's one ofthose, I think, again, a lot of
(11:18):
our our baby boomers and andmaybe moving into some of our
Gen Xers, maybe our older GenXers, they spent their summers
with a weed hook, and one of theplants that they knew to pull
out of those rows was milkweed.So, you know, there's there's a
lot of love to hate this plantout there.
Ken (11:39):
Yeah. I think still I think you come across a little bit
more in Southern states, but theextension publications on
managing milkweed in pasturesand stuff because it's toxic to
to livestock and stuff. Sothere's still it's still trying
to be managed Mhmm. To this day.
Chris (11:57):
Yeah. That is true. That is true. Well, since I mean, I'm
not growing acres of corn andsoybeans in my yard, this is
definitely milkweed isdefinitely a plant that we can
put in our garden. And becausewe have, you know, nearly a
(12:17):
dozen species which can be foundin Illinois, they can't all be
that bad.
Right, Ken? Like, we we we havesome choices here, don't we? We
can use these in our landscape.
Ken (12:29):
Correct. Yeah. So I get the others. Well, there's an half
species. You know, some of theseso I've I've got the list here.
I can list them off real quick.We have sand milkweed, poke
milkweed, tall green milkweed,and I'm not gonna do the
scientific names because I don'tknow how to pronounce most of
them. Swamp or rose milkweed,woolly milkweed, which is
endangered in the state, Mead'smilkweed, which is endangered in
(12:52):
the state, and I think federallyendangered or threatened, ova
milkweed, which is endangered inthe state. White swamp, purple,
whorled, showy, narrow leavedgreen milkweed, which is
endangered in the state.Prairie, common, butterfly weed,
variegated, horsetail, green,green flowered.
(13:15):
So, you know, we've got allthose, honestly, before we
really started looking at thisstuff, I haven't hadn't heard of
probably half of those, before.Just, we don't commonly
encounter them, at least in thehorticultural trade. Like the
ones we do, probably butterfly,butterfly weed, tuberosa, the
(13:35):
orange flowered one. I thinkit's probably, at least when I
see milkweed, that's usually theone we most commonly see. It's a
smaller species, it fits wellinto a garden.
Swamp or rose milkweed. I thinkmoving I think a lot of garden
places or nurseries and stuffare moving towards more of the
(13:56):
rose instead of swamp milkweedname because it doesn't have to
grow in swampy conditions. And Ithink the reasoning for that is
people hear swamp, think youneed wet conditions so they
don't plant it. But you can doit in your average, moisture
soils. So that's incarnata.
Yeah. It's a pretty popular one.It's not terribly aggressive.
(14:17):
World milkweed, that's one Ihaven't seen too much and I've
never personally grown, butthat's another one we see. Showy
milkweed, a little bit bigger,bigger flower head, than some of
these other types.
Or probably I would say the fourthat we most commonly see and
would fit well into a garden. Iplan to show you last year, so
(14:37):
it hasn't spread too much. So Ican report back in a few years.
I may have to retract thatstatement. But the other three I
know, I don't think move outsideof seed.
They don't, you know, spread.Like something like a common
milkweed, which is probably theone that gives milkweeds a bad
name. That's the one that getsit's big, it's aggressive, We're
(15:02):
readily spread. It gets quitelarge. So if you're planting the
cinna, your typical homelandscaping, very good chance
it's gonna take over, if you'renot actively, managing it and
kinda cutting it back and stuff.
Chris (15:16):
Ken, you know, you've you've planted a few of those.
So do you have a a favoriteamongst those those that you
have listed here? Is there onethat you would say you kinda
look forward to seeing thatbloom or you you look forward to
seeing that grow every year?
Ken (15:33):
Yeah. I think the the butterfly, we've had that in our
garden the longest. So that'skind of self seeded and it's
relatively easy to pull whenit's small. So we've got some
patches here and there and thebright orange flowers, are
pretty attractive. On a sidenote like that one, there's
there's a lot of variation I'venoticed in those flower colors.
(15:53):
A couple of years ago we weredriving down the Southern US,
Southeast and they had stuffalong the roadside, like I
almost had to stop because itwas like a red orange. Was a
very, very different color. Thestuff we have in our yard is
more of a bright orange, butthis was like a red orange, like
borderline red, on it. So therethere can be some variation
(16:15):
within those flowers. I don'tknow if that's more like the
Southern eco type is more of ared orange or that's just
happened to be what we saw alongthe interstate and stuff.
Yeah, probably that one, theother two, the the swamp rose
and the showy, we haven't beengrowing quite as long. This is
the year. Our showy is bloomingthis year, for the time. And
(16:38):
it's it's pretty impressive. Wecan I'll take a picture.
We can pop it in here. But it'sgot a nice big, I guess, umbral,
right, flower of flowers on it.So
Chris (16:50):
Mhmm. Yeah. My I I would say I I really like the swamp
milkweed, or I should I shouldstart calling it rose milkweed.
And mine is just about to bloom.I mean, the the the petals are
almost open here.
(17:10):
And so I, yeah, I can pop apicture in of of that going on
right now. That's one that Ilook forward to. And I do have
mine sighted and kind of thelowest spot in my yard. It stays
pretty wet in terms of, like,soil moisture conditions. And I
have planted swamp milkweed inin other parts of my yard in,
(17:34):
like, my pollinator garden whereit lasted about a year or two
years.
And then I collected pods off ofthat, and then I I planted it,
the the seed down below in inthat wet spot there where I had
it. And it's really it's thrivedthere. Whereas where I had it up
in the drier area, it really itdidn't only lasted a couple
(17:54):
years, which I could keep itgoing if I just kept putting the
seed down in that one spot, justkind of smash those seed pods
where the base of that plant waslike, ah, I'll just keep keep it
growing. And you know what? I dorecall on our trips down south,
seeing a lot of butterfly weed,that orange flower along
(18:17):
roadside, especially, like, Ithink along 57 south of Marion,
Illinois.
You get south of there, andthere's just along the roadside,
there's just a lot of thatorange butterfly milkweed out
there. And that's often the oneI like the habit of that one
because it's sort of rounded ormounded. As you said, more
(18:38):
contained. The the the leavesseem a bit more stiff, more
rigid. But it that's the onewhere when people say to me,
hey, I want to, you know, havepollinator I wanna have a
pollinator garden or whatflowers can I plant?
And then when I mention milkweedand they start to, you know,
(19:00):
they they they pull their handback to slap me, I say, woah,
woah, woah. There is this onespecies of milkweed. It's called
butterfly weed. It's very wellbehaved. That's usually my
gateway milkweed for a lot ofpeople.
The just to try that one, seewhat you think, and and and
then, you know, maybe you canbranch out into other species in
(19:21):
the coming years.
Ken (19:22):
Yeah. Yeah. I'd agree with that. Yeah. That's your your
gateway drug And I think thatlooks a little I think would fit
in a little bit better in moreof a formal type garden, at
least in my opinion, than someof these others.
These others some of theseothers can look a little look a
little wild. Sometimes, wherebutterfly weed has a little more
of that manicured look to, Iguess, for lack of a better
(19:45):
term. Yeah.
Chris (19:49):
And these are, for the most part, wild selections. I am
starting to see cultivars pop upin nurseries. So that's just
something to be mindful of. Wedon't necessarily need to get
into the wild versus cultivateddebate right now, something
that, you know, whether or notyour tolerance level for a
(20:11):
cultivated plant, native plant,whatever that is, you will find
you'll start seeing these moreoften. I actually I think I've
seen a swamp slash rose milkweedcultivar in our local native
plant nursery pretty recently.
Ken (20:24):
Yeah. We got a those herbaceous perennial plants by
Alan Armitage, and he's got acouple cultivars listed. So for
swamp, you've got Cinderella.It's got larger rosy pink
flowers, more compact morecompact flower heads, apparently
have a vanilla fragrance tothem. There's nothing I've I've
never really smelled milkweedflowers, but I've always read
(20:46):
there's supposed to befragrance.
Chris (20:48):
I think milkweed smells great. Yes. It has a great
fragrance.
Ken (20:52):
You have to go outside and start smelling them now. Swamp,
I know some more swamp, iceballet, white flowers, soul
mate, rose purple clusters. Andthen for butterfly weed, the gay
butterflies, mix of yellow,orange and red flowered forms.
Hello yellow, yellow flowers. Soyeah.
(21:14):
I think it's I mean, I thinkit's if milkweed continues to
be, as popular as it is, I Iwould expect we'd see more as
people get into to breeding orfinding some of these Mhmm.
These colored morphs and allthat stuff.
Chris (21:33):
And I guess maybe we should have said this sooner,
but with all these differentspecies of milkweed, how do know
you're looking at a milkweed?One of the ways I was taught was
look at the flower. Like, somilkweed and this is kind of
true for a lot of the otherdogbane related plants, but, you
know, generally speaking,milkweed, when we are looking at
(21:56):
the flower, we have five flowerparts up and five flower parts
down. That is one of the, youknow, basic ID characteristics
you can use when looking atmilkweed, also other dogbane
plants. But that that that's thething I think, you know, that
(22:16):
you can look for.
You know, I think a lot of theseplant families, they have this
one thing that really stands outlike Asteraceae, you know, they
they have kind of those rayflowers and so that that can
help ID that start theidentification process. When it
comes to these milkweeds, fiveflower parts up, five flower
parts down.
Ken (22:35):
I usually break off a leaf, look for milky sap.
Chris (22:39):
That's another You could do that except I think it's
butterfly weed. Does butterflyweed I
Ken (22:45):
don't think it has a whole lot.
Chris (22:47):
Yeah. You gotta, like, really squeeze that plant that
leaf to get that milky sap outof there.
Ken (22:52):
It's not like common milkweed when you snap it and it
just starts oozing
Chris (22:55):
out of everywhere and it's sticky and it's just it's
just latex y white sap, which istoxic. And interestingly, the
monarch caterpillar which hascoevolved with this plant has
mouthparts that prevents thetriggering of the sap flow while
it's munching on these leaves.So it can eat entire leaves
(23:19):
without triggering that sap flowof this plant.
Ken (23:22):
Well, should we talk about monarchs a little bit? Milkweed?
Probably should.
Chris (23:27):
That's usually the reason people are interested in them.
Yeah. Probably should.
Ken (23:33):
So I guess this will kind of go we ascend to like
pollination and stuff. So, youknow, so new monarchs and other
butterflies will visit theflowers of milkweed to drink
nectar and stuff like that. Butthey're not necessarily the best
pollinators of that. So likefrom the plants perspective, you
(23:53):
probably think of monarchs asbeing a pest. They don't really
do a whole lot of pollinationbecause, milkweeds, the Asclepus
has a pretty unique way ofgetting pollinated.
So they, when we think aboutpollen, most plants, we've got
the pollen grains that arereleased this fine dust, with
the Asclepias, Asclepias,they've got the Polinia, so this
(24:15):
is basically a sack that thepollen is contained in. It's
them and some orchids are thekind of the two groups that have
this. So this pollen is within asack. So when and there is a, a
document let me find this realquick. From, USDA, natural NRCS
(24:37):
Natural Resource ConservationService on milkweed pollination
biology.
We can throw a link to this,into the show notes because I
don't know if we can takepictures good enough to show
some of this stuff because thisis going to be pretty zoomed in.
But basically they've kind ofgot this unique structure where
they have these pollinia,there's there's two of them and
(24:58):
on the flower, there's astigmatic slit on there. So
basically when an insect landson this flower, it's kind of
waxy, they have a hard timegripping on, it'll go into the
slit, their foot, mouth part,some part of their body will get
caught in that and it onlyallows them, the leg or
whatever, to go up. So they'llkind of work their way up into
(25:18):
this plania. There's some otherstructures that are kind of
clamp down on whatever bodyparts is caught in there.
They're able to pull their legout, and it's attached to them
and they'll go around visitother flowers and then while
they're doing that, if that leg,if it's stuck on leg, it gets
caught again and it goes into,that stigmatic slit again, that
(25:42):
plenty goes in there just right,into kind of this tube, it'll
pollinate the plants. So that'swhy they're not, it's, it's a
pretty complicated system to getpollinated. And I'd say it
requires a degree of luck,almost because you've got to get
everything lined up just rightto get this pollination. So it's
(26:03):
really one reason why we don'tsee more seed pods on milkweed
just because you've got to geteverything lined up, just right.
And that was pretty a prettycrude, description.
It makes a lot more sense if youcan see pictures. We'll try to
put pictures in here or we'llput that paper in the in the
show notes so you can actuallysee, what they're talking about.
(26:24):
But it's it's kind of I don'tknow. It's pretty unique. Went
down a little of a rabbit hole.
Learned about that.
Chris (26:32):
But well, you need the right insect for the job too. I
mean, I I think after this, I'mgonna go out and look more
closely at milkweed flowers andsee if I see any insects that
might be stuck or dead becausethey got caught in these
pollinia and they you know,maybe they're not strong enough
and they just can't pull theirtheir leg out. There's, you
(26:53):
know, some instances in thispaper, they talk about insects
missing legs because of thisbecause of the the way
pollination works on milkweedflowers. So, it's kind of a
violent act for these poor, beesand and wasps, it seems like,
were the more common pollinatorsin in this case, larger ones.
Ken (27:13):
Yeah. Bigger, bigger, stronger insects. So something
like a if you ever looked at abutterfly legs, they're not
terribly thick and big. So Iwould imagine they can probably
get out of there, relativelyeasily without picking up those
pollinia. So again, they're notnecessarily transferring a lot
of those.
So they're probably not doing awhole lot of pollination, for
milkweed just because the waythey've evolved this kind of
(27:35):
unique system of spreading theirpollen and getting pollinated.
So more of a pest. And thenwhich leads to, you know, those
those toxic chemicals thatmilkweed has has developed. It's
it's an arms nature is nothingbut a giant arms race. You know,
so the the milk the cat monarchsstart feeding on it.
(27:55):
Milkweed starts creatingchemicals that are toxic.
Milkweed or the monarchs figureout a way to detoxify those who
are not affected by them, and itjust kinda keeps going back and
to the point now where basicallyyou have these specialist
insects feeding on the milkweedbecause it's gonna be toxic to
just about anything else. Butthese other, things, you know,
(28:15):
the monarchs, milkweed, tussockmoth, milk, swamp milkweed
beetle. There's there's a wholecommunity of insects that feed
on on milkweed. They've foundways to detoxify this or or
avoid, those chemicals so theycan feed on it.
Chris (28:32):
Fascinating. It is quite a rabbit hole to go down and to
realize just what is happeningon on milkweed plants. You've
said it before, Ken. I've saidit before. Milkweed's kind of
like its own little world.
There's so much happening onthere. There's so many
specialized insects that mightyou might find on milkweed. I
(28:52):
mean, there's monarch butterfly,but we also have the milkweed
bug. You know, it's just just aninsect that is you will find
them on these. You know, I'llprobably say this wrong, Kim.
They have piercing suckingmouthparts. They feed on the
leaves, but they also go in,they'll feed on the seeds,
right? If they can get into thatseed pod and they'll damage the
(29:13):
viability of a lot of yourseeds. Correct?
Ken (29:16):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Large and small milkweed bugs, milkweed
beetle.
Chris (29:21):
They're probably under aphids.
Ken (29:23):
Yeah. We we focus on on monarchs because they're the big
charismatic ones. But there's alot of other insects that are
gonna rely on it. You know, justbecause other things are feeding
on your milkweed, you know, weas humans have decided that the
milkweeds or milkweeds shouldonly be for monarchs, but
there's other things that feedon it. So if you have that, I
(29:45):
would encourage people not toget rid of them because those
most of those things are gonnarely on that stuff, as well.
And a lot of times they'reeating different parts. Like the
tussock moths, they, like, feedtend to feed on older leaves,
whereas monarchs are morefeeding on the newer leaves, the
softer stuff. So sometimes thesethings aren't necessarily even
in in competition, with monarchseither. Yeah.
Chris (30:08):
But, Ken, milkweeds, monarchs are synonymous, and
people are probably just like,well, when are they gonna tell
us what is the best milkweed fora monarch butterfly? So what's
best? Do we is there a is therea clear winner? You know, what
do monarchs prefer?
Ken (30:28):
Yes. Let me got too many tabs open. So there was a, this
is some research done in Iowa.It was published in 2018, but
they went and looked at, whatwas it, Monarch? Nine different
species of milkweed.
So they monitored these plants,they looked at egg laying, they
(30:50):
looked at larval survivorshipand stuff like that and what
they found. So larvalsurvivorship, is they designated
as high if over 60% of thelarvae reached adulthood, less
than that, was considered low.Over position use, so how often
(31:14):
they were laying eggs on it. Ifit is high, it's the top of the
plants. Medium is the middle Lowis is the bottom.
So this is some of this stuff isrelative to the other species.
And they also looked at or theythis table, we can put a link to
this article in the show notesagain too. They also looked at
ease of establishment, fromplugs, and stuff too. So they
(31:37):
looked at poke milkweeds, thishad high larval survivorship,
medium oviposition use, but itwas difficult to establish from
plugs. Tall green milkweed, lowlarval survivorship, medium
oviposition use, difficult toestablish.
Swamp milkweed, high larvalsurvivorship, high oviposition
use. So they lay lots of eggs onthem, a lot of larvae survive,
(32:01):
it's easy to establish. So thiswould be one. If purely doing
this for monarchs, Swampmilkweed, rose milkweed would be
one to look at. Showy milkweed,high larval survivorship, medium
oviposition use, again it's easyto establish.
So another possibility, notquite as good as swamp, but
another good one. Prairiemilkweed, high larval
(32:23):
survivorship, medium ovipositionuse, medium establishment.
Common milkweed, high for larvalsurvivorship and oviposition,
use and easy to establish. Butagain, doesn't work all that
well in a lot of landscapesbecause it can be rather
aggressive. Butterfly milkweed,high level larval survivorship
(32:47):
but low over position use.
They don't use it very much.They don't lay a whole lot of
eggs on them compared to others.But they do still recommend this
one, as kind of a late seasonlarval host. I think it kind of
survives or sticks around alittle bit longer than some of
these other species. Worldmilkweed, high survivorship,
(33:09):
below oviposition use, easy toestablish, but so probably not
one you want look at becausethey're not going lay a lot of
eggs on it.
Chris (33:17):
They have tiny leaves. Yes.
Ken (33:19):
And then one we haven't talked about, we will in a
little bit, honey vine milkweed,which is not in a Scalapus
asclepius, but is is lumped inwith them. Low survivorship,
medium oviposition use, veryeasy to establish. So again, not
recommended. So the ones,they're recommending, and this
is for restoration use, butagain, you could translate this
(33:43):
into a home landscape would beswamp milkweed, curry milkweed,
common, but again, use that withcaution because it will take
over if you're not careful. Andthen butterfly weed as a late
season.
Again, they don't necessarilylay a whole lot of eggs on them.
Again, it's a smaller plant,smaller leaves. But they do the
(34:05):
the caterpillars do a good jobof surviving on it as well. So
Chris (34:09):
And I would say just anecdotally, that sounds about
right. I do tend to find quite afew caterpillars on my swamp
milkweed mid to late season.Late season, that might be an
incorrect statement, but butlater in the summer. But once we
get towards that tail end ofthat migration generation, you
(34:33):
know, towards the tail end ofthem, my swamp milkweed looks
terrible. You know, maybe aboutearly fall.
You know, there's hardly anyleaves left. It's ready to give
up the ghost, and that must bewhy they're talking about
butterfly weed there for thatlate season leaf food source for
the larvae. But, yeah, that thatall seems to line up
(34:55):
anecdotally. I did think forsome reason in my head that
world milkweed would be moredesirable because it has
daintier leaves and maybe wouldjust be more palatable. But no,
because the leaves are tiny andthe females she can't get her
ovipositor there to lay the theegg properly.
(35:17):
And the way the female lays heregg is she bends her abdomen
underneath and and lays that eggon the underside of the leaf
because a monarch caterpillarhatching can drown in a single
drop of water. So that's whythey lay their eggs on the
underside. Caterpillar hatches,eats its egg case for the most
part, and then kind of aroundthat until it gets a little bit
(35:38):
bigger into its next instarstage, and then it can start
being a bit more adventurous onthe milkweed plant.
Ken (35:44):
Yeah. And with that world, they they survive well on it.
Yeah. They just you just don'tget a lot of eggs. And and for
the like, for the the butterflyweed, you know, when we planted
that, kids were a little bityounger, they were still into
insects and looking at stuffwith me, not so much anymore.
But we would go out and look forthem and we'd never nothing,
nothing, nothing. And thenusually that August, September
(36:07):
time frame even that we wouldstart seeing caterpillars. And
there's a few years where wefound some, we had a hard frost
coming in. It's like, well,we're going bring these inside
and rear them because they'renot going to survive this frost.
Yeah, we definitely see thatthey didn't really start showing
up, least in my yard until laterin the year.
Chris (36:27):
Yeah. I I would say also with like our swamp milkweed. So
we do farm progress showextension usually has a display
there. For the last few fewtimes we've done it, we've done
pollinator garden displays wherewe brought in pollinator plants.
One of those was swamp milkweed,which I was holding over in my
backyard until the the event.
And when I brought it there,unbeknownst to me, these plants
(36:49):
were covered in monarchcaterpillars and which was a
great demonstration to haveduring an event. I also did
though get a very disturbingvideo of probably a Chinese
mantis eating a monarchcaterpillar, which I can pop in
here, but I don't know if peoplereally wanna see that because
it's it's a little gross.
Ken (37:11):
I think it'd be cool.
Chris (37:13):
Alright. I'll do it then. Here it is, folks. Enjoy this
monarch caterpillar being eatenby a Chinese, I think Chinese
mantis. I doubt it's a Carolinamantis.
Ken (37:22):
You're gonna add sound effects?
Chris (37:24):
Oh, yeah. Like munching kind of gross block of the like
a zombie eating something. Yeah.Hey, Ken. You did mention one in
that list there, which wehaven't covered.
You said it's not technically amilkweed, but a lot of people
(37:44):
call it a milkweed. And also itcan have it can support monarch
caterpillars as a larval foodsource. Honey vine. I've also
heard it called blue vine. Ithas a couple synonyms in terms
of scientific names.
In our notes, we have it down assinacum sinacum, lava, or lavia.
(38:09):
I've also heard it calledampullamis albidus. But either
way, it is an aggressive weedyvine, which I have seen debates
on the social medias aboutpeople saying, my yard is
covered in this crazy vinethat's going everywhere. And
(38:32):
then once they identify it as aas honey vine, as a larval
source, food source for monarchbutterflies, then the debate
happens of should I pull it orshould I keep it? I will just
say from my own personalexperience, when we purchased
the home we live in right now,it was October.
I noticed on many of theshrubberies that there were
(38:55):
these little pods hanging allover the place. And I was like,
well, that's interesting. Idon't know quite what that plant
is. I cleaned it all up. Andthen spring tame springtime came
around and just this everythingjust started getting eaten by
these honey vines.
And I just it took me a toidentify it because it does look
kind of like a kind of like afield bindweed almost. So that's
(39:19):
what I thought it was at butthen I noticed, well, on one,
there were monarch caterpillarson. I'm like, well, why would
there be monarch caterpillars onfield bindweed? And then doing a
little bit more digging,realizing, oh, this is honey
vine, also known as blue vine.And I was like, I'm sorry,
caterpillars.
Like, this this plant is eatingmy my my yard. So I do control
(39:44):
it. I have not sprayed it. Iusually just pull it and then it
just comes back from the rootsystem. And I've been doing that
for five years now.
And there's a particular one,it's right by where I turn my
hose on. Every time I turn on myhose, I just pull it, little
sprout that's growing up. Andfor the last five years, at
least once a week, it it stillis there even though I barely
(40:08):
let it live, like survive tophotosynthesize. Now I throw a
couple pictures of these varioushoney vines growing in my yard
because undoubtedly I'll be ableto find something.
Ken (40:22):
Yeah. We've got, on a fence, chain link fence, one
year. They grew up. And yeah,it's, we've been dealing with it
ever since. It's like in ourbleeding hearts.
And I get and that'll twirlaround stuff. And a lot of times
you don't notice it until ifit's growing in a plant until
it's pretty big and sointertwined that you're just
(40:43):
ripping the other plant apart,trying to get in. So but yeah,
some people do leave it. It's itis a native plant. So, you can
grow to be like 20 feet long.
So if if you are going to growit, you are going to let it,
survive. Be careful about whereyou're gonna put it because you
will be dealing with it for awhile, if you if you don't if
(41:07):
you wanna get rid of it. And Ihaven't I haven't sprayed just
because it's interspersed withall kinds of other plants that
spraying wouldn't be practicalto do that. But unless you wanna
be constantly out there picking,pulling up, exhausting that root
system, spraying is probablygonna be your best bet to manage
it quickly anyway.
Chris (41:27):
Yep. And I've been very good at picking it and just
reminder, it's been five yearsand still picking. I think the
previous homeowner just kindalet it go, though. So they
weren't very active out in theyard anyway. And and maybe that
is a good example of the site orthe scale of your site.
If you have acres of prairie,oh, yeah. Honey vine would be a
(41:50):
good plant. Common milkweedwould be a good plant. For a
smaller, you know, sized gardenbed, landscape bed, probably not
as appropriate.
Ken (42:04):
Yeah. Where it's you're looking at somewhere where it's
gonna be contained by a by asidewalk. Mhmm. Personally, and
even then, it still may be ableto work its way under there and
pop up on the other side forboth of them.
Chris (42:19):
Yep. Alright, Ken. Well, we've just told them how to kill
one of these plants, or to maybeperhaps recommend killing one of
these types of not a sclepis,but a related milkweedish type
plant. But let's say we wannapromote a milkweed plant. Maybe
we want to like in my case, Ihave a swamp milkweed.
(42:40):
How do I go about have gettingmore? How do I propagate this
plant so I can have more in mylandscape?
Ken (42:49):
Yeah. So in the fall, you know, those seed pods, they're
certain green and they willstart to brown and eventually
they will open up and they willrelease their seeds and they
have the fluff. I should reallylook up the technical term for
that.
Chris (43:03):
No, it is the fluff.
Ken (43:04):
The fluff will catch the wind and they will blow away.
But if you don't want that tohappen, you know, as the seed
pods start drying down, openingup, you can collect those seeds.
I think typically people wouldremove those fluff. That fluff,
can put them in a bag, shakethem around, knock that off. And
our the milkweeds are going toneed, cold moist stratification.
I think typically therecommendation is about thirty
(43:26):
days. So you put seed, put thoseinto flats, put them outside in
your garage, put them outsidefor the winter, let that natural
cycle go. What I do, we'll do alot or when we planted them by
seed in the past, we will putthem, we'll put them in a flat
or in a container. We'll putthem in the refrigerator, for
(43:48):
for a month, month and a halfjust to be safe, bring them out,
put them under our lights, andget them germinate. But you've
gotta get that stratification,in order for them to germinate.
You don't do that, you're notgonna have very good, very good
success growing them from seed.
Chris (44:04):
And and I'll add that research project from WU where
they studied milkweeds, thatprofessor, they had really
dialed in, I think, thatgermination process where he had
described it to me as, you know,two weeks in the fridge, pull it
out for two weeks, then twoweeks back in the fridge, then
pull it out, and then two weeksback in the fridge. So
(44:24):
basically, you're you're cyclingthrough this three times. And
then he described it as gettingnear 100% germination, you know,
just so there's sort of that.It's just mimicking that cycle
that we do get in the winter ofcold to warm, cold to warm, or
really freezing to thawing,freezing to thawing. And so that
(44:47):
that seemed to do it.
So if you're really gung hoabout germinating some milkweed
seed, you know, there are someprocedure process that you can
do to to really make it veryefficient. I did do a a little
project with some WIU students afew years ago, seven years ago,
eight years ago now, where wedid test milkweed seed that had
(45:08):
been cold moist stratified forthirty days. I think one for
fifteen days and then one not atall. We did get some germination
of the not at all seed, butdefinitely not really comparable
to the the thirty day cold moiststratification. And I wish, you
know, the students had submittedall their lab reports for that
on the on the WU, like, I don'tknow, assignment submission
(45:32):
website.
Mhmm. I wish I had downloadedthat so I could actually have
the germination rates because II didn't record it. They
recorded it in their labreports, and I never I failed to
ever download it and and recordit. I just said, hey. They
submitted it.
A plus.
Ken (45:51):
It's floating around there somewhere.
Chris (45:53):
Maybe. Somewhere in the the digital ether, it is there.
Ken (45:56):
So when it comes to, like, planting them, this is one a
plant where you wanna make sureyou pick your site wisely
because they do not like beingtransplanted. So make sure you
get them where you want them. Orif you're buying, you know,
plants and pots, be careful notto disturb that root system too
much when you're planting, butespecially when they get
(46:17):
established. You could try tomove them, but don't get I
wouldn't get my hopes up toohigh about having a tremendous
amount of success moving themaround. Yeah.
Chris (46:28):
They they don't like it. I I do recall one of our former
guests, Lane Kanoki, hediscussed some of his his better
transplant successes with withmilkweeds. I can't remember the
exact species we're talkingabout, but he had he had
described whatever it was aspecific species that they're
(46:50):
they're planting plugs in agarden, but they were deep cell
plugs. I mean, you're talking,like, six inches or more, I
think, of a cell of a plug thatwas able to sort of give that
plant a good deep root system.That way it's not as disturbed
when you're taking it from theplug into the actual garden.
So Ken, I I don't do much to mymilkweed. I kind of maybe pull a
(47:15):
couple other competing plants.We do have a couple of those
haemurocalis fulva, those ditchlilies as I call them, the
orange orange day lilies. I kindof push those back. I'm mean to
those.
I I don't control aphids onmine. I don't do anything like
that. I don't know. There's nottoo much maintenance, don't
(47:39):
think. But there are some peoplethat about midsummer, they like
to cut down their milkweed.
And this might be more for thecommon type milkweed or maybe
those more fibrous y, you know,stiffer leaved types. That way
once we get towards more towardsthat migration generation with
(48:00):
the monarch butterflies, we havebrand new growth, fresh growth
that might not be as quitehardened off as some of, you
know, some of those older leavesmight be a little bit more
tougher for those monarchcaterpillars. And so I know a
lot of people do that. There'salso a strategy when it comes to
mowing. So highway departments,there are windows of time when
(48:22):
you can mow ditches or fieldsthat might contain quite, you
know, lots, vast quantities ofmilkweed to minimize the impact
to to kind of feeding orbreeding monarchs.
And I believe that that reallydoes vary depending where you're
at in The US. You can link to aI think it was a blog post I did
(48:42):
many years ago called it mowingfor monarchs, I think. But for
the most part, least where I'mat, Ken, I think you might be a
little bit different thanJacksonville. But we can pretty
much manage milkweed, which bymanage means cutting it down or
mowing it anywhere from likeOctober 1 to May 1. You know, we
(49:03):
don't expect to have very manymonarchs in the area at that
point in time.
Of course, there's exceptions incertain years. And then you sort
of leave it alone. But if you dohave a time in the middle of
summer where you need to to cutit down, it's usually, like,
July 1 to July 20. You know,that's your your mowing window
(49:23):
for the summer, at least whereI'm at in sort of that Northern
Western Central Illinois area inMacomb. I think yours might be a
little bit your windows might bea little bit different because
you're farther south than me.
Ken (49:38):
Yeah. I'm not sure. I don't know if I've ever looked to see
when that window would be. Somaybe a little bit later since
they'd be a little bit latergetting down here.
Chris (49:49):
Let's see. Where are you there, Ken? There we go. So for
you, you know, general allpurpose maintenance, October 15
to April 1. And then for you, ifyou need to do a summer haircut,
July 1 to July 20, there's likesorry.
There's like four different bluecolors on this map. Having
(50:10):
trouble distinguishing whichblue this is. I think that's the
correct one for for your areaaround Jacksonville. A little
bit darker for me, October 1 toMay 1. If you wanna give your
milkweed a summer haircut, June30 to July 10 for more than
northern part of Illinois.
(50:31):
So I'll post a link to thatparticular publication down
below.
Ken (50:37):
Yeah. As yeah. As far as milkweed in my yard, yeah, I'm
kinda same as you. It's whateverhappens happens. Yeah.
I don't do anything with we getthe oleander aphids, the yellow
ones all the time on there. Ifyou watch closely, you got a lot
of other things going on.They're eating them. And if you
wanna see some parasitizedaphids, find a milkweed. You can
(50:59):
pretty much find someparasitized there.
You can find leafy beetle larvaefeeding on them, lacewing
larvae, surfeit fly larvae, allkinds of stuff. Know, because
you got your own little littlecommunity of insects, feeding on
on the oleander aphids. And, youknow, there's one question I get
you, you probably do too,probably all of us around the
state get, you know, I've gotaphids eating my milkweed. Mhmm.
(51:23):
What should I do?
I again, usually I would leaveit now if it's completely
coated, you know, you could gothrough and smoosh them, just
put your hand on there andsquish them all. You're gonna
get a little dirty. You can alsospray them off with water. The
problem with it was smashingthem or spraying them off with
water, if you've got anymonarchs on there, especially if
(51:43):
they're really little, justhatch or eggs, you're probably
smooshing them and washing themoff too. So there's a there's a
bit of a balance there.
I can't tell you what what theright the right way to do it or,
you know, you've kind of gotit's not gonna be up to the
individuals how much how riskaverse they are when it comes to
to managing that stuff and thenpotentially impacting the
(52:05):
monarch caterpillars on there.
Chris (52:08):
Well, can so we've talked so much about Asclepius.
Asclepius? Asclepius. What whatwho who named this plant the the
plant of the year? Like, whatare who has this power and
authority?
Ken (52:26):
Yeah. So if you're a long time listener going back to the
spring, earlier this spring, Iguess, yeah, we're still in
spring. Right?
Chris (52:33):
Yes. Yes. I technically. Yeah.
Ken (52:36):
Yes. Tech technically. So it's the year of, you know,
Dogwood, Monstera, peas,calendula, all that stuff. So
that's National Garden Bureau.And the last the one the only
one we haven't covered yet,well, we have covered now, was
year of Asclepius Asclepius.
So National Garden Bureau is theones who who declared this the
(53:01):
year of Asclepius.
Chris (53:04):
Wonder if if I had that power, what would I declare
plant of the year? I don't know.A question a better question for
another day because I thinkwe've already hit our time limit
for this episode. That will bethe next one. What would we
declare as plant of the year?
It's too many to pick.
Ken (53:26):
Flip a coin. Mhmm. Go through a list and close your
eyes and point. That's right.
Chris (53:34):
Well, that was a lot of great information about
milkweeds aka Asclepus, as Isay, Asclepius, as Ken says. You
say it how you wanna say it,folks. There's there's more ways
to say this one word. Well, theGood Roy podcast is a production
of University of IllinoisExtension, edited this week by
me, Chris Enroth. Hey, Ken.
A special thanks to you hangingout and chatting all about this
(53:57):
pretty massive genus. Mean, it'snot massive. There's bigger ones
out there, but but boy, it was alot of good information today.
Ken (54:06):
Yes. Thank you. I learned some new stuff. I'm gonna have
to go smell my milkweeds now,see what they smell like,
because I've never done thatbefore. And everybody else
should too.
And let's do this again nextweek.
Chris (54:19):
Oh, we shall do this again next week. What a busy
time of the year it is. We gotour grow along growing along and
all other kinds of things goingon. So we're gonna have a guard
bite for you next week, folks.Well, listeners, thank you for
doing what you do best and thatis listening or if you're
watching us on YouTube watching.
And as always, keep on growing.Have we beaten the milkweeds
(54:52):
with a stick?
Ken (54:56):
Yeah. I'm trying to think. Is there anything else?
Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris
Enroth, horticulture educator atthe University of Illinois
Extension coming at you from MacOmb, Illinois, and we have got a
great show for you today. Theplant of the year. Really not
the plant, it is more like thegenus of the year. We're going
to be talking about Asclepis.
(00:29):
And then, like, if we'd writethat out, it would say Asclepus
species or SP dot dot dot dotdot dot, you know, because we're
gonna be talking about manydifferent types of Asclepus,
also known as milkweed. And youknow I'm not doing this by
myself. I am joined as alwaysevery single week by
horticulture educator KenJohnson in Jacksonville. Hey,
Ken.
Ken (00:48):
Hello, Chris. So is it Asclepus or Asclepius? Doesn't
matter.
Chris (00:53):
No. I read it and I don't say it. Let's I'll go with
myself as Asclepius. What do yousay?
Ken (01:01):
I I always said Asclepius.
Chris (01:03):
Oh, no. Well, just so people
Ken (01:06):
know we're talking about the
Chris (01:07):
same thing. We are talking about the same thing.
Asclepius. I mean, that soundsmore Greek. Yes.
I like that one. Fancier. Morefancier. Barkeep, give me my
Asclepius, please.
Ken (01:20):
Thank you when you say it.
Chris (01:21):
That's right. Or otherwise, it's nurse, give me
my Asclepus. So but but we'retalking about a a genus of
plants. And when we say genus,plant species are described in
in two terms. Genus, which isusually capitalized, and it it
(01:46):
encompasses multiple plants.
And then we have the specificepitaph or epiteth. How do we
say words anymore, Ken? I don'tknow. But it's the word in the
binomial naming system that oftaxonomy that we name plants. We
use Latin.
And so that specific epitaph orI always called it species,
like, even though the two initself described the species, I
(02:10):
often would say that word inthat binomial name is the
species.
Ken (02:16):
Again Technically. Mhmm. Technically, yes. The specific
epithet. Yes.
And the species is genus andspecific epithet together. At
least that's what I was told andI wanna say he got in trouble,
but got in trouble in class fornot doing it right.
Chris (02:34):
It it impacted his GPA, and so he'll never forget it.
But listen to Ken. He's smart.He knows what he's talking
about. Yes.
Those two words, they describe aspecies of plant, animal,
whatever, you know, livingthing. And today, it is as
(02:54):
asclepius, asclepus. I don't Idon't this is gonna
Ken (02:57):
be rough. Okay. Sorry. Never should have brought that
up.
Chris (03:01):
That's alright. It's alright. Milkweed. How about
that? Let's talk aboutmilkweeds.
Ken (03:08):
Let's do it. So I think so there's there's, like, 200 some
species worldwide of Yep. So Iguess we should back a little
bit. So when we say milkweed,depending on what you're
reading, milkweed may just beAsclepias Asclepias, Asclepias.
But sometimes there's also someother genera thrown in there.
(03:28):
But for today, I think we're,with the exception of one plant,
we're going to focus onAsclepias Asclepias. So there's
24 species in Illinois ofmilkweeds. And I guess in the
broad sense, I think it wasthere 19 18 or 19 if I counted
right, that are actuallyAsclepias, Asclepias, then a
couple others from from theother genera that we sometimes
(03:52):
lump in to milkweed. So and then200 species of Asclepias
worldwide. So there's and Ithink when we think about
Asclepias, especially in agarden setting, you know, we're
thinking of, like, a handful ofplants, but there are quite a
few species out there.
You may not be able to get themfor your garden, but there's
there's more than just a handfulwe typically see.
Chris (04:12):
Yes. And as Ken said, there's, you know, 200 species
worldwide. But for the mostpart, they describe this genus
as more of they call them newworld plants. So, you know,
North South American plantspecies is where they primarily
would find these growing intheir native ranges. Although
you can find, you know,milkweeds in in Europe, Asia,
(04:35):
Africa.
Like, they are they're a globalgenus, but the broad majority of
them can be found in their quoteunquote new world category of
plants. So it was something thatwas discovered by European
explorers that would bring themback to Europe to be described
then by by botanists. Andactually, one of the
(04:57):
illustrations of the kind ofpoorly faded Roanoke colony, one
of the illustrations that thatsurvived it because a lot of
other things didn't was anillustration of Asclepus
acericia. How do we say how dowe say these names, Ken? Cyrica.
(05:18):
I know it as common milkweed.But yes. Asclepus cerica cerica?
Ken (05:27):
I don't know if I've ever said it out loud.
Chris (05:29):
I know. I like, you don't say these words out loud. You
read them. Cerica, cerica,cerica. We're gonna put the text
down below here, and you canread it yourself, folks, and
make up your own mind.
Yes. Common milkweed, that wasone of the botanical drawings of
this that that we know about.And then once we got up into,
(05:54):
like, the mid seventeenhundreds, Bladnaeus then got his
hands on this, and he startedcategorizing this in his
binomial taxon taxonomic system.And the Sclepus, as it is today,
is in the dogbane family orapostinaceae. The the dogbane
(06:16):
family has a lot of other plantsin it.
Again, we're not really gonnatalk about it. We have native
ones here, like we have just thenative dogbane, which they have
very similar flower structures,similar fruiting structures. And
they were lumped together a longlong time ago, hundreds of years
ago. But it wasn't until likethe eighteen hundreds that they
(06:38):
noticed that the floweringstructures of of Asclepus
Asclepius was different thanother dogbane families. And then
they pushed all of themilkweeds, all of that genus
Asclepus out into its ownfamily, into the Asclepidaceae
family.
And that's where it remaineduntil about, you know, nineteen
(07:00):
eighties, nineteen nineties, westarted working on genetics and
looking at plants much moreclosely than we ever could
before. And that's when theynoticed like, you know,
genetically speaking, theseplants in the dogbane family and
the milkweed family, they arethey are more closely related.
They belong in the same family.So now a sclepus is a subfamily
(07:21):
in the dogbane family and theApostinaceae family. And so that
that's kind of the the his thebroader history of of milkweed
taxonomy and where it belongs inthe in the literature, so to
speak.
But but, Ken, there there'sthere's other things to know
(07:42):
about milkweed, like how we howwe use it outside of the garden.
I know one of them, you know, wehave volunteers that they're
baby boomers. Some of them, youknow, we we even have some of
the greatest generationvolunteers still kind of hanging
around there. And they tellstories about when they were
kids and they had to go and pickmilkweed pods to supply the
(08:07):
World War two effort, which thepods were primarily used in
flotation devices for the forthe navy.
Ken (08:14):
Yeah. And the fluff, whatever the technical term for
that is. I don't know what itis. I'm sure there is one. I
think that sometimes it is stillused for, like hypoallergenic
pillows, like the stuffing, forpillows and stuff.
So I think it's it's got a waxycoating on it so it kind of
repels water too, which isprobably again why you would use
(08:36):
it in any flotation device aswell. And I think indigenous
Americans would use some speciesof milkweed to make fiber
because they're kind of fibrousstems and stuff, so use that to
make rope and stuff like that.Because, there's there's
additional uses. Think some usedfor some species for medicinal
purposes. I would not recommenddoing that nowadays.
(08:58):
We probably have better things.And milkweed is toxic too. So
it's it's one of those where thedose makes the poison. So a
little bit may be helpful, buttoo much is not going to be
helpful and cause problemsitself.
Chris (09:13):
That's correct. Yes. And there was a professor at WIU. He
spent many years, you know,seeing if milkweed could be an
alternative fiber crop. And Ithink the results were pretty
promising, but milkweed has kindof a negative connotation in the
farming industry.
(09:35):
And I think the main roadblockthey were running into was just
the idea of planting milkweed onpurpose. I mean, I still run
into that when we're talkingabout you know, maybe we're
we're we're talking at a class,public, we're at a booth or a
table somewhere at an event, andsomeone asks about monarch
butterflies or pollinators, andwe we mentioned milkweed. Oh,
(09:57):
man. If you're they're a farmer,they're not too pleased about
the the suggestion of milkweedbeing planted on purpose.
Ken (10:06):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're doing pollinator presentations
and oftentimes the spouse willsay, my husband will kill me if
I plant milkweed intentionallyin our flower garden and stuff
like that. Don't run into thatas much as I used to when I
started.
I think there's a little moreacceptance now. And I think the
(10:27):
the species you pick can canhelp with that too. But yeah, I
think there's still some somepockets of resistance to to
milkweed out there.
Chris (10:35):
Yeah. Well, I think in general, milkweed, if you look
at historic weed scienceliterature, it is described as a
minor agricultural weed. Reallywas not an issue when it came
with a lot of, like, crophealth. But because of its
fibrous nature, it gummed upmachinery. It it it affected the
(10:58):
combine as it was rollingthrough the field.
And so in in some of thosemilkweeds, they can grow in
these big colonies. You imagine,like, an older generation
combine trying to move through afixed stand of milkweed pulling
the corn out of the field, mightaffect things a little bit. So
but but yeah. So I that's one ofthose, I think, again, a lot of
(11:18):
our our baby boomers and andmaybe moving into some of our
Gen Xers, maybe our older GenXers, they spent their summers
with a weed hook, and one of theplants that they knew to pull
out of those rows was milkweed.So, you know, there's there's a
lot of love to hate this plantout there.
Ken (11:39):
Yeah. I think still I think you come across a little bit
more in Southern states, but theextension publications on
managing milkweed in pasturesand stuff because it's toxic to
to livestock and stuff. Sothere's still it's still trying
to be managed Mhmm. To this day.
Chris (11:57):
Yeah. That is true. That is true. Well, since I mean, I'm
not growing acres of corn andsoybeans in my yard, this is
definitely milkweed isdefinitely a plant that we can
put in our garden. And becausewe have, you know, nearly a
(12:17):
dozen species which can be foundin Illinois, they can't all be
that bad.
Right, Ken? Like, we we we havesome choices here, don't we? We
can use these in our landscape.
Ken (12:29):
Correct. Yeah. So I get the others. Well, there's an half
species. You know, some of theseso I've I've got the list here.
I can list them off real quick.We have sand milkweed, poke
milkweed, tall green milkweed,and I'm not gonna do the
scientific names because I don'tknow how to pronounce most of
them. Swamp or rose milkweed,woolly milkweed, which is
endangered in the state, Mead'smilkweed, which is endangered in
(12:52):
the state, and I think federallyendangered or threatened, ova
milkweed, which is endangered inthe state. White swamp, purple,
whorled, showy, narrow leavedgreen milkweed, which is
endangered in the state.Prairie, common, butterfly weed,
variegated, horsetail, green,green flowered.
(13:15):
So, you know, we've got allthose, honestly, before we
really started looking at thisstuff, I haven't hadn't heard of
probably half of those, before.Just, we don't commonly
encounter them, at least in thehorticultural trade. Like the
ones we do, probably butterfly,butterfly weed, tuberosa, the
(13:35):
orange flowered one. I thinkit's probably, at least when I
see milkweed, that's usually theone we most commonly see. It's a
smaller species, it fits wellinto a garden.
Swamp or rose milkweed. I thinkmoving I think a lot of garden
places or nurseries and stuffare moving towards more of the
(13:56):
rose instead of swamp milkweedname because it doesn't have to
grow in swampy conditions. And Ithink the reasoning for that is
people hear swamp, think youneed wet conditions so they
don't plant it. But you can doit in your average, moisture
soils. So that's incarnata.
Yeah. It's a pretty popular one.It's not terribly aggressive.
(14:17):
World milkweed, that's one Ihaven't seen too much and I've
never personally grown, butthat's another one we see. Showy
milkweed, a little bit bigger,bigger flower head, than some of
these other types.
Or probably I would say the fourthat we most commonly see and
would fit well into a garden. Iplan to show you last year, so
(14:37):
it hasn't spread too much. So Ican report back in a few years.
I may have to retract thatstatement. But the other three I
know, I don't think move outsideof seed.
They don't, you know, spread.Like something like a common
milkweed, which is probably theone that gives milkweeds a bad
name. That's the one that getsit's big, it's aggressive, We're
(15:02):
readily spread. It gets quitelarge. So if you're planting the
cinna, your typical homelandscaping, very good chance
it's gonna take over, if you'renot actively, managing it and
kinda cutting it back and stuff.
Chris (15:16):
Ken, you know, you've you've planted a few of those.
So do you have a a favoriteamongst those those that you
have listed here? Is there onethat you would say you kinda
look forward to seeing thatbloom or you you look forward to
seeing that grow every year?
Ken (15:33):
Yeah. I think the the butterfly, we've had that in our
garden the longest. So that'skind of self seeded and it's
relatively easy to pull whenit's small. So we've got some
patches here and there and thebright orange flowers, are
pretty attractive. On a sidenote like that one, there's
there's a lot of variation I'venoticed in those flower colors.
(15:53):
A couple of years ago we weredriving down the Southern US,
Southeast and they had stuffalong the roadside, like I
almost had to stop because itwas like a red orange. Was a
very, very different color. Thestuff we have in our yard is
more of a bright orange, butthis was like a red orange, like
borderline red, on it. So therethere can be some variation
(16:15):
within those flowers. I don'tknow if that's more like the
Southern eco type is more of ared orange or that's just
happened to be what we saw alongthe interstate and stuff.
Yeah, probably that one, theother two, the the swamp rose
and the showy, we haven't beengrowing quite as long. This is
the year. Our showy is bloomingthis year, for the time. And
(16:38):
it's it's pretty impressive. Wecan I'll take a picture.
We can pop it in here. But it'sgot a nice big, I guess, umbral,
right, flower of flowers on it.So
Chris (16:50):
Mhmm. Yeah. My I I would say I I really like the swamp
milkweed, or I should I shouldstart calling it rose milkweed.
And mine is just about to bloom.I mean, the the the petals are
almost open here.
(17:10):
And so I, yeah, I can pop apicture in of of that going on
right now. That's one that Ilook forward to. And I do have
mine sighted and kind of thelowest spot in my yard. It stays
pretty wet in terms of, like,soil moisture conditions. And I
have planted swamp milkweed inin other parts of my yard in,
(17:34):
like, my pollinator garden whereit lasted about a year or two
years.
And then I collected pods off ofthat, and then I I planted it,
the the seed down below in inthat wet spot there where I had
it. And it's really it's thrivedthere. Whereas where I had it up
in the drier area, it really itdidn't only lasted a couple
(17:54):
years, which I could keep itgoing if I just kept putting the
seed down in that one spot, justkind of smash those seed pods
where the base of that plant waslike, ah, I'll just keep keep it
growing. And you know what? I dorecall on our trips down south,
seeing a lot of butterfly weed,that orange flower along
(18:17):
roadside, especially, like, Ithink along 57 south of Marion,
Illinois.
You get south of there, andthere's just along the roadside,
there's just a lot of thatorange butterfly milkweed out
there. And that's often the oneI like the habit of that one
because it's sort of rounded ormounded. As you said, more
(18:38):
contained. The the the leavesseem a bit more stiff, more
rigid. But it that's the onewhere when people say to me,
hey, I want to, you know, havepollinator I wanna have a
pollinator garden or whatflowers can I plant?
And then when I mention milkweedand they start to, you know,
(19:00):
they they they pull their handback to slap me, I say, woah,
woah, woah. There is this onespecies of milkweed. It's called
butterfly weed. It's very wellbehaved. That's usually my
gateway milkweed for a lot ofpeople.
The just to try that one, seewhat you think, and and and
then, you know, maybe you canbranch out into other species in
(19:21):
the coming years.
Ken (19:22):
Yeah. Yeah. I'd agree with that. Yeah. That's your your
gateway drug And I think thatlooks a little I think would fit
in a little bit better in moreof a formal type garden, at
least in my opinion, than someof these others.
These others some of theseothers can look a little look a
little wild. Sometimes, wherebutterfly weed has a little more
of that manicured look to, Iguess, for lack of a better
(19:45):
term. Yeah.
Chris (19:49):
And these are, for the most part, wild selections. I am
starting to see cultivars pop upin nurseries. So that's just
something to be mindful of. Wedon't necessarily need to get
into the wild versus cultivateddebate right now, something
that, you know, whether or notyour tolerance level for a
(20:11):
cultivated plant, native plant,whatever that is, you will find
you'll start seeing these moreoften. I actually I think I've
seen a swamp slash rose milkweedcultivar in our local native
plant nursery pretty recently.
Ken (20:24):
Yeah. We got a those herbaceous perennial plants by
Alan Armitage, and he's got acouple cultivars listed. So for
swamp, you've got Cinderella.It's got larger rosy pink
flowers, more compact morecompact flower heads, apparently
have a vanilla fragrance tothem. There's nothing I've I've
never really smelled milkweedflowers, but I've always read
(20:46):
there's supposed to befragrance.
Chris (20:48):
I think milkweed smells great. Yes. It has a great
fragrance.
Ken (20:52):
You have to go outside and start smelling them now. Swamp,
I know some more swamp, iceballet, white flowers, soul
mate, rose purple clusters. Andthen for butterfly weed, the gay
butterflies, mix of yellow,orange and red flowered forms.
Hello yellow, yellow flowers. Soyeah.
(21:14):
I think it's I mean, I thinkit's if milkweed continues to
be, as popular as it is, I Iwould expect we'd see more as
people get into to breeding orfinding some of these Mhmm.
These colored morphs and allthat stuff.
Chris (21:33):
And I guess maybe we should have said this sooner,
but with all these differentspecies of milkweed, how do know
you're looking at a milkweed?One of the ways I was taught was
look at the flower. Like, somilkweed and this is kind of
true for a lot of the otherdogbane related plants, but, you
know, generally speaking,milkweed, when we are looking at
(21:56):
the flower, we have five flowerparts up and five flower parts
down. That is one of the, youknow, basic ID characteristics
you can use when looking atmilkweed, also other dogbane
plants. But that that that's thething I think, you know, that
(22:16):
you can look for.
You know, I think a lot of theseplant families, they have this
one thing that really stands outlike Asteraceae, you know, they
they have kind of those rayflowers and so that that can
help ID that start theidentification process. When it
comes to these milkweeds, fiveflower parts up, five flower
parts down.
Ken (22:35):
I usually break off a leaf, look for milky sap.
Chris (22:39):
That's another You could do that except I think it's
butterfly weed. Does butterflyweed I
Ken (22:45):
don't think it has a whole lot.
Chris (22:47):
Yeah. You gotta, like, really squeeze that plant that
leaf to get that milky sap outof there.
Ken (22:52):
It's not like common milkweed when you snap it and it
just starts oozing
Chris (22:55):
out of everywhere and it's sticky and it's just it's
just latex y white sap, which istoxic. And interestingly, the
monarch caterpillar which hascoevolved with this plant has
mouthparts that prevents thetriggering of the sap flow while
it's munching on these leaves.So it can eat entire leaves
(23:19):
without triggering that sap flowof this plant.
Ken (23:22):
Well, should we talk about monarchs a little bit? Milkweed?
Probably should.
Chris (23:27):
That's usually the reason people are interested in them.
Yeah. Probably should.
Ken (23:33):
So I guess this will kind of go we ascend to like
pollination and stuff. So, youknow, so new monarchs and other
butterflies will visit theflowers of milkweed to drink
nectar and stuff like that. Butthey're not necessarily the best
pollinators of that. So likefrom the plants perspective, you
(23:53):
probably think of monarchs asbeing a pest. They don't really
do a whole lot of pollinationbecause, milkweeds, the Asclepus
has a pretty unique way ofgetting pollinated.
So they, when we think aboutpollen, most plants, we've got
the pollen grains that arereleased this fine dust, with
the Asclepias, Asclepias,they've got the Polinia, so this
(24:15):
is basically a sack that thepollen is contained in. It's
them and some orchids are thekind of the two groups that have
this. So this pollen is within asack. So when and there is a, a
document let me find this realquick. From, USDA, natural NRCS
(24:37):
Natural Resource ConservationService on milkweed pollination
biology.
We can throw a link to this,into the show notes because I
don't know if we can takepictures good enough to show
some of this stuff because thisis going to be pretty zoomed in.
But basically they've kind ofgot this unique structure where
they have these pollinia,there's there's two of them and
(24:58):
on the flower, there's astigmatic slit on there. So
basically when an insect landson this flower, it's kind of
waxy, they have a hard timegripping on, it'll go into the
slit, their foot, mouth part,some part of their body will get
caught in that and it onlyallows them, the leg or
whatever, to go up. So they'llkind of work their way up into
(25:18):
this plania. There's some otherstructures that are kind of
clamp down on whatever bodyparts is caught in there.
They're able to pull their legout, and it's attached to them
and they'll go around visitother flowers and then while
they're doing that, if that leg,if it's stuck on leg, it gets
caught again and it goes into,that stigmatic slit again, that
(25:42):
plenty goes in there just right,into kind of this tube, it'll
pollinate the plants. So that'swhy they're not, it's, it's a
pretty complicated system to getpollinated. And I'd say it
requires a degree of luck,almost because you've got to get
everything lined up just rightto get this pollination. So it's
(26:03):
really one reason why we don'tsee more seed pods on milkweed
just because you've got to geteverything lined up, just right.
And that was pretty a prettycrude, description.
It makes a lot more sense if youcan see pictures. We'll try to
put pictures in here or we'llput that paper in the in the
show notes so you can actuallysee, what they're talking about.
(26:24):
But it's it's kind of I don'tknow. It's pretty unique. Went
down a little of a rabbit hole.
Learned about that.
Chris (26:32):
But well, you need the right insect for the job too. I
mean, I I think after this, I'mgonna go out and look more
closely at milkweed flowers andsee if I see any insects that
might be stuck or dead becausethey got caught in these
pollinia and they you know,maybe they're not strong enough
and they just can't pull theirtheir leg out. There's, you
(26:53):
know, some instances in thispaper, they talk about insects
missing legs because of thisbecause of the the way
pollination works on milkweedflowers. So, it's kind of a
violent act for these poor, beesand and wasps, it seems like,
were the more common pollinatorsin in this case, larger ones.
Ken (27:13):
Yeah. Bigger, bigger, stronger insects. So something
like a if you ever looked at abutterfly legs, they're not
terribly thick and big. So Iwould imagine they can probably
get out of there, relativelyeasily without picking up those
pollinia. So again, they're notnecessarily transferring a lot
of those.
So they're probably not doing awhole lot of pollination, for
milkweed just because the waythey've evolved this kind of
(27:35):
unique system of spreading theirpollen and getting pollinated.
So more of a pest. And thenwhich leads to, you know, those
those toxic chemicals thatmilkweed has has developed. It's
it's an arms nature is nothingbut a giant arms race. You know,
so the the milk the cat monarchsstart feeding on it.
(27:55):
Milkweed starts creatingchemicals that are toxic.
Milkweed or the monarchs figureout a way to detoxify those who
are not affected by them, and itjust kinda keeps going back and
to the point now where basicallyyou have these specialist
insects feeding on the milkweedbecause it's gonna be toxic to
just about anything else. Butthese other, things, you know,
(28:15):
the monarchs, milkweed, tussockmoth, milk, swamp milkweed
beetle. There's there's a wholecommunity of insects that feed
on on milkweed. They've foundways to detoxify this or or
avoid, those chemicals so theycan feed on it.
Chris (28:32):
Fascinating. It is quite a rabbit hole to go down and to
realize just what is happeningon on milkweed plants. You've
said it before, Ken. I've saidit before. Milkweed's kind of
like its own little world.
There's so much happening onthere. There's so many
specialized insects that mightyou might find on milkweed. I
(28:52):
mean, there's monarch butterfly,but we also have the milkweed
bug. You know, it's just just aninsect that is you will find
them on these. You know, I'llprobably say this wrong, Kim.
They have piercing suckingmouthparts. They feed on the
leaves, but they also go in,they'll feed on the seeds,
right? If they can get into thatseed pod and they'll damage the
(29:13):
viability of a lot of yourseeds. Correct?
Ken (29:16):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Large and small milkweed bugs, milkweed
beetle.
Chris (29:21):
They're probably under aphids.
Ken (29:23):
Yeah. We we focus on on monarchs because they're the big
charismatic ones. But there's alot of other insects that are
gonna rely on it. You know, justbecause other things are feeding
on your milkweed, you know, weas humans have decided that the
milkweeds or milkweeds shouldonly be for monarchs, but
there's other things that feedon it. So if you have that, I
(29:45):
would encourage people not toget rid of them because those
most of those things are gonnarely on that stuff, as well.
And a lot of times they'reeating different parts. Like the
tussock moths, they, like, feedtend to feed on older leaves,
whereas monarchs are morefeeding on the newer leaves, the
softer stuff. So sometimes thesethings aren't necessarily even
in in competition, with monarchseither. Yeah.
Chris (30:08):
But, Ken, milkweeds, monarchs are synonymous, and
people are probably just like,well, when are they gonna tell
us what is the best milkweed fora monarch butterfly? So what's
best? Do we is there a is therea clear winner? You know, what
do monarchs prefer?
Ken (30:28):
Yes. Let me got too many tabs open. So there was a, this
is some research done in Iowa.It was published in 2018, but
they went and looked at, whatwas it, Monarch? Nine different
species of milkweed.
So they monitored these plants,they looked at egg laying, they
(30:50):
looked at larval survivorshipand stuff like that and what
they found. So larvalsurvivorship, is they designated
as high if over 60% of thelarvae reached adulthood, less
than that, was considered low.Over position use, so how often
(31:14):
they were laying eggs on it. Ifit is high, it's the top of the
plants. Medium is the middle Lowis is the bottom.
So this is some of this stuff isrelative to the other species.
And they also looked at or theythis table, we can put a link to
this article in the show notesagain too. They also looked at
ease of establishment, fromplugs, and stuff too. So they
(31:37):
looked at poke milkweeds, thishad high larval survivorship,
medium oviposition use, but itwas difficult to establish from
plugs. Tall green milkweed, lowlarval survivorship, medium
oviposition use, difficult toestablish.
Swamp milkweed, high larvalsurvivorship, high oviposition
use. So they lay lots of eggs onthem, a lot of larvae survive,
(32:01):
it's easy to establish. So thiswould be one. If purely doing
this for monarchs, Swampmilkweed, rose milkweed would be
one to look at. Showy milkweed,high larval survivorship, medium
oviposition use, again it's easyto establish.
So another possibility, notquite as good as swamp, but
another good one. Prairiemilkweed, high larval
(32:23):
survivorship, medium ovipositionuse, medium establishment.
Common milkweed, high for larvalsurvivorship and oviposition,
use and easy to establish. Butagain, doesn't work all that
well in a lot of landscapesbecause it can be rather
aggressive. Butterfly milkweed,high level larval survivorship
(32:47):
but low over position use.
They don't use it very much.They don't lay a whole lot of
eggs on them compared to others.But they do still recommend this
one, as kind of a late seasonlarval host. I think it kind of
survives or sticks around alittle bit longer than some of
these other species. Worldmilkweed, high survivorship,
(33:09):
below oviposition use, easy toestablish, but so probably not
one you want look at becausethey're not going lay a lot of
eggs on it.
Chris (33:17):
They have tiny leaves. Yes.
Ken (33:19):
And then one we haven't talked about, we will in a
little bit, honey vine milkweed,which is not in a Scalapus
asclepius, but is is lumped inwith them. Low survivorship,
medium oviposition use, veryeasy to establish. So again, not
recommended. So the ones,they're recommending, and this
is for restoration use, butagain, you could translate this
(33:43):
into a home landscape would beswamp milkweed, curry milkweed,
common, but again, use that withcaution because it will take
over if you're not careful. Andthen butterfly weed as a late
season.
Again, they don't necessarilylay a whole lot of eggs on them.
Again, it's a smaller plant,smaller leaves. But they do the
(34:05):
the caterpillars do a good jobof surviving on it as well. So
Chris (34:09):
And I would say just anecdotally, that sounds about
right. I do tend to find quite afew caterpillars on my swamp
milkweed mid to late season.Late season, that might be an
incorrect statement, but butlater in the summer. But once we
get towards that tail end ofthat migration generation, you
(34:33):
know, towards the tail end ofthem, my swamp milkweed looks
terrible. You know, maybe aboutearly fall.
You know, there's hardly anyleaves left. It's ready to give
up the ghost, and that must bewhy they're talking about
butterfly weed there for thatlate season leaf food source for
the larvae. But, yeah, that thatall seems to line up
(34:55):
anecdotally. I did think forsome reason in my head that
world milkweed would be moredesirable because it has
daintier leaves and maybe wouldjust be more palatable. But no,
because the leaves are tiny andthe females she can't get her
ovipositor there to lay the theegg properly.
(35:17):
And the way the female lays heregg is she bends her abdomen
underneath and and lays that eggon the underside of the leaf
because a monarch caterpillarhatching can drown in a single
drop of water. So that's whythey lay their eggs on the
underside. Caterpillar hatches,eats its egg case for the most
part, and then kind of aroundthat until it gets a little bit
(35:38):
bigger into its next instarstage, and then it can start
being a bit more adventurous onthe milkweed plant.
Ken (35:44):
Yeah. And with that world, they they survive well on it.
Yeah. They just you just don'tget a lot of eggs. And and for
the like, for the the butterflyweed, you know, when we planted
that, kids were a little bityounger, they were still into
insects and looking at stuffwith me, not so much anymore.
But we would go out and look forthem and we'd never nothing,
nothing, nothing. And thenusually that August, September
(36:07):
time frame even that we wouldstart seeing caterpillars. And
there's a few years where wefound some, we had a hard frost
coming in. It's like, well,we're going bring these inside
and rear them because they'renot going to survive this frost.
Yeah, we definitely see thatthey didn't really start showing
up, least in my yard until laterin the year.
Chris (36:27):
Yeah. I I would say also with like our swamp milkweed. So
we do farm progress showextension usually has a display
there. For the last few fewtimes we've done it, we've done
pollinator garden displays wherewe brought in pollinator plants.
One of those was swamp milkweed,which I was holding over in my
backyard until the the event.
And when I brought it there,unbeknownst to me, these plants
(36:49):
were covered in monarchcaterpillars and which was a
great demonstration to haveduring an event. I also did
though get a very disturbingvideo of probably a Chinese
mantis eating a monarchcaterpillar, which I can pop in
here, but I don't know if peoplereally wanna see that because
it's it's a little gross.
Ken (37:11):
I think it'd be cool.
Chris (37:13):
Alright. I'll do it then. Here it is, folks. Enjoy this
monarch caterpillar being eatenby a Chinese, I think Chinese
mantis. I doubt it's a Carolinamantis.
Ken (37:22):
You're gonna add sound effects?
Chris (37:24):
Oh, yeah. Like munching kind of gross block of the like
a zombie eating something. Yeah.Hey, Ken. You did mention one in
that list there, which wehaven't covered.
You said it's not technically amilkweed, but a lot of people
(37:44):
call it a milkweed. And also itcan have it can support monarch
caterpillars as a larval foodsource. Honey vine. I've also
heard it called blue vine. Ithas a couple synonyms in terms
of scientific names.
In our notes, we have it down assinacum sinacum, lava, or lavia.
(38:09):
I've also heard it calledampullamis albidus. But either
way, it is an aggressive weedyvine, which I have seen debates
on the social medias aboutpeople saying, my yard is
covered in this crazy vinethat's going everywhere. And
(38:32):
then once they identify it as aas honey vine, as a larval
source, food source for monarchbutterflies, then the debate
happens of should I pull it orshould I keep it? I will just
say from my own personalexperience, when we purchased
the home we live in right now,it was October.
I noticed on many of theshrubberies that there were
(38:55):
these little pods hanging allover the place. And I was like,
well, that's interesting. Idon't know quite what that plant
is. I cleaned it all up. Andthen spring tame springtime came
around and just this everythingjust started getting eaten by
these honey vines.
And I just it took me a toidentify it because it does look
kind of like a kind of like afield bindweed almost. So that's
(39:19):
what I thought it was at butthen I noticed, well, on one,
there were monarch caterpillarson. I'm like, well, why would
there be monarch caterpillars onfield bindweed? And then doing a
little bit more digging,realizing, oh, this is honey
vine, also known as blue vine.And I was like, I'm sorry,
caterpillars.
Like, this this plant is eatingmy my my yard. So I do control
(39:44):
it. I have not sprayed it. Iusually just pull it and then it
just comes back from the rootsystem. And I've been doing that
for five years now.
And there's a particular one,it's right by where I turn my
hose on. Every time I turn on myhose, I just pull it, little
sprout that's growing up. Andfor the last five years, at
least once a week, it it stillis there even though I barely
(40:08):
let it live, like survive tophotosynthesize. Now I throw a
couple pictures of these varioushoney vines growing in my yard
because undoubtedly I'll be ableto find something.
Ken (40:22):
Yeah. We've got, on a fence, chain link fence, one
year. They grew up. And yeah,it's, we've been dealing with it
ever since. It's like in ourbleeding hearts.
And I get and that'll twirlaround stuff. And a lot of times
you don't notice it until ifit's growing in a plant until
it's pretty big and sointertwined that you're just
(40:43):
ripping the other plant apart,trying to get in. So but yeah,
some people do leave it. It's itis a native plant. So, you can
grow to be like 20 feet long.
So if if you are going to growit, you are going to let it,
survive. Be careful about whereyou're gonna put it because you
will be dealing with it for awhile, if you if you don't if
(41:07):
you wanna get rid of it. And Ihaven't I haven't sprayed just
because it's interspersed withall kinds of other plants that
spraying wouldn't be practicalto do that. But unless you wanna
be constantly out there picking,pulling up, exhausting that root
system, spraying is probablygonna be your best bet to manage
it quickly anyway.
Chris (41:27):
Yep. And I've been very good at picking it and just
reminder, it's been five yearsand still picking. I think the
previous homeowner just kindalet it go, though. So they
weren't very active out in theyard anyway. And and maybe that
is a good example of the site orthe scale of your site.
If you have acres of prairie,oh, yeah. Honey vine would be a
(41:50):
good plant. Common milkweedwould be a good plant. For a
smaller, you know, sized gardenbed, landscape bed, probably not
as appropriate.
Ken (42:04):
Yeah. Where it's you're looking at somewhere where it's
gonna be contained by a by asidewalk. Mhmm. Personally, and
even then, it still may be ableto work its way under there and
pop up on the other side forboth of them.
Chris (42:19):
Yep. Alright, Ken. Well, we've just told them how to kill
one of these plants, or to maybeperhaps recommend killing one of
these types of not a sclepis,but a related milkweedish type
plant. But let's say we wannapromote a milkweed plant. Maybe
we want to like in my case, Ihave a swamp milkweed.
(42:40):
How do I go about have gettingmore? How do I propagate this
plant so I can have more in mylandscape?
Ken (42:49):
Yeah. So in the fall, you know, those seed pods, they're
certain green and they willstart to brown and eventually
they will open up and they willrelease their seeds and they
have the fluff. I should reallylook up the technical term for
that.
Chris (43:03):
No, it is the fluff.
Ken (43:04):
The fluff will catch the wind and they will blow away.
But if you don't want that tohappen, you know, as the seed
pods start drying down, openingup, you can collect those seeds.
I think typically people wouldremove those fluff. That fluff,
can put them in a bag, shakethem around, knock that off. And
our the milkweeds are going toneed, cold moist stratification.
I think typically therecommendation is about thirty
(43:26):
days. So you put seed, put thoseinto flats, put them outside in
your garage, put them outsidefor the winter, let that natural
cycle go. What I do, we'll do alot or when we planted them by
seed in the past, we will putthem, we'll put them in a flat
or in a container. We'll putthem in the refrigerator, for
(43:48):
for a month, month and a halfjust to be safe, bring them out,
put them under our lights, andget them germinate. But you've
gotta get that stratification,in order for them to germinate.
You don't do that, you're notgonna have very good, very good
success growing them from seed.
Chris (44:04):
And and I'll add that research project from WU where
they studied milkweeds, thatprofessor, they had really
dialed in, I think, thatgermination process where he had
described it to me as, you know,two weeks in the fridge, pull it
out for two weeks, then twoweeks back in the fridge, then
pull it out, and then two weeksback in the fridge. So
(44:24):
basically, you're you're cyclingthrough this three times. And
then he described it as gettingnear 100% germination, you know,
just so there's sort of that.It's just mimicking that cycle
that we do get in the winter ofcold to warm, cold to warm, or
really freezing to thawing,freezing to thawing. And so that
(44:47):
that seemed to do it.
So if you're really gung hoabout germinating some milkweed
seed, you know, there are someprocedure process that you can
do to to really make it veryefficient. I did do a a little
project with some WIU students afew years ago, seven years ago,
eight years ago now, where wedid test milkweed seed that had
(45:08):
been cold moist stratified forthirty days. I think one for
fifteen days and then one not atall. We did get some germination
of the not at all seed, butdefinitely not really comparable
to the the thirty day cold moiststratification. And I wish, you
know, the students had submittedall their lab reports for that
on the on the WU, like, I don'tknow, assignment submission
(45:32):
website.
Mhmm. I wish I had downloadedthat so I could actually have
the germination rates because II didn't record it. They
recorded it in their labreports, and I never I failed to
ever download it and and recordit. I just said, hey. They
submitted it.
A plus.
Ken (45:51):
It's floating around there somewhere.
Chris (45:53):
Maybe. Somewhere in the the digital ether, it is there.
Ken (45:56):
So when it comes to, like, planting them, this is one a
plant where you wanna make sureyou pick your site wisely
because they do not like beingtransplanted. So make sure you
get them where you want them. Orif you're buying, you know,
plants and pots, be careful notto disturb that root system too
much when you're planting, butespecially when they get
(46:17):
established. You could try tomove them, but don't get I
wouldn't get my hopes up toohigh about having a tremendous
amount of success moving themaround. Yeah.
Chris (46:28):
They they don't like it. I I do recall one of our former
guests, Lane Kanoki, hediscussed some of his his better
transplant successes with withmilkweeds. I can't remember the
exact species we're talkingabout, but he had he had
described whatever it was aspecific species that they're
(46:50):
they're planting plugs in agarden, but they were deep cell
plugs. I mean, you're talking,like, six inches or more, I
think, of a cell of a plug thatwas able to sort of give that
plant a good deep root system.That way it's not as disturbed
when you're taking it from theplug into the actual garden.
So Ken, I I don't do much to mymilkweed. I kind of maybe pull a
(47:15):
couple other competing plants.We do have a couple of those
haemurocalis fulva, those ditchlilies as I call them, the
orange orange day lilies. I kindof push those back. I'm mean to
those.
I I don't control aphids onmine. I don't do anything like
that. I don't know. There's nottoo much maintenance, don't
(47:39):
think. But there are some peoplethat about midsummer, they like
to cut down their milkweed.
And this might be more for thecommon type milkweed or maybe
those more fibrous y, you know,stiffer leaved types. That way
once we get towards more towardsthat migration generation with
(48:00):
the monarch butterflies, we havebrand new growth, fresh growth
that might not be as quitehardened off as some of, you
know, some of those older leavesmight be a little bit more
tougher for those monarchcaterpillars. And so I know a
lot of people do that. There'salso a strategy when it comes to
mowing. So highway departments,there are windows of time when
(48:22):
you can mow ditches or fieldsthat might contain quite, you
know, lots, vast quantities ofmilkweed to minimize the impact
to to kind of feeding orbreeding monarchs.
And I believe that that reallydoes vary depending where you're
at in The US. You can link to aI think it was a blog post I did
(48:42):
many years ago called it mowingfor monarchs, I think. But for
the most part, least where I'mat, Ken, I think you might be a
little bit different thanJacksonville. But we can pretty
much manage milkweed, which bymanage means cutting it down or
mowing it anywhere from likeOctober 1 to May 1. You know, we
(49:03):
don't expect to have very manymonarchs in the area at that
point in time.
Of course, there's exceptions incertain years. And then you sort
of leave it alone. But if you dohave a time in the middle of
summer where you need to to cutit down, it's usually, like,
July 1 to July 20. You know,that's your your mowing window
(49:23):
for the summer, at least whereI'm at in sort of that Northern
Western Central Illinois area inMacomb. I think yours might be a
little bit your windows might bea little bit different because
you're farther south than me.
Ken (49:38):
Yeah. I'm not sure. I don't know if I've ever looked to see
when that window would be. Somaybe a little bit later since
they'd be a little bit latergetting down here.
Chris (49:49):
Let's see. Where are you there, Ken? There we go. So for
you, you know, general allpurpose maintenance, October 15
to April 1. And then for you, ifyou need to do a summer haircut,
July 1 to July 20, there's likesorry.
There's like four different bluecolors on this map. Having
(50:10):
trouble distinguishing whichblue this is. I think that's the
correct one for for your areaaround Jacksonville. A little
bit darker for me, October 1 toMay 1. If you wanna give your
milkweed a summer haircut, June30 to July 10 for more than
northern part of Illinois.
(50:31):
So I'll post a link to thatparticular publication down
below.
Ken (50:37):
Yeah. As yeah. As far as milkweed in my yard, yeah, I'm
kinda same as you. It's whateverhappens happens. Yeah.
I don't do anything with we getthe oleander aphids, the yellow
ones all the time on there. Ifyou watch closely, you got a lot
of other things going on.They're eating them. And if you
wanna see some parasitizedaphids, find a milkweed. You can
(50:59):
pretty much find someparasitized there.
You can find leafy beetle larvaefeeding on them, lacewing
larvae, surfeit fly larvae, allkinds of stuff. Know, because
you got your own little littlecommunity of insects, feeding on
on the oleander aphids. And, youknow, there's one question I get
you, you probably do too,probably all of us around the
state get, you know, I've gotaphids eating my milkweed. Mhmm.
(51:23):
What should I do?
I again, usually I would leaveit now if it's completely
coated, you know, you could gothrough and smoosh them, just
put your hand on there andsquish them all. You're gonna
get a little dirty. You can alsospray them off with water. The
problem with it was smashingthem or spraying them off with
water, if you've got anymonarchs on there, especially if
(51:43):
they're really little, justhatch or eggs, you're probably
smooshing them and washing themoff too. So there's a there's a
bit of a balance there.
I can't tell you what what theright the right way to do it or,
you know, you've kind of gotit's not gonna be up to the
individuals how much how riskaverse they are when it comes to
to managing that stuff and thenpotentially impacting the
(52:05):
monarch caterpillars on there.
Chris (52:08):
Well, can so we've talked so much about Asclepius.
Asclepius? Asclepius. What whatwho who named this plant the the
plant of the year? Like, whatare who has this power and
authority?
Ken (52:26):
Yeah. So if you're a long time listener going back to the
spring, earlier this spring, Iguess, yeah, we're still in
spring. Right?
Chris (52:33):
Yes. Yes. I technically. Yeah.
Ken (52:36):
Yes. Tech technically. So it's the year of, you know,
Dogwood, Monstera, peas,calendula, all that stuff. So
that's National Garden Bureau.And the last the one the only
one we haven't covered yet,well, we have covered now, was
year of Asclepius Asclepius.
So National Garden Bureau is theones who who declared this the
(53:01):
year of Asclepius.
Chris (53:04):
Wonder if if I had that power, what would I declare
plant of the year? I don't know.A question a better question for
another day because I thinkwe've already hit our time limit
for this episode. That will bethe next one. What would we
declare as plant of the year?
It's too many to pick.
Ken (53:26):
Flip a coin. Mhmm. Go through a list and close your
eyes and point. That's right.
Chris (53:34):
Well, that was a lot of great information about
milkweeds aka Asclepus, as Isay, Asclepius, as Ken says. You
say it how you wanna say it,folks. There's there's more ways
to say this one word. Well, theGood Roy podcast is a production
of University of IllinoisExtension, edited this week by
me, Chris Enroth. Hey, Ken.
A special thanks to you hangingout and chatting all about this
(53:57):
pretty massive genus. Mean, it'snot massive. There's bigger ones
out there, but but boy, it was alot of good information today.
Ken (54:06):
Yes. Thank you. I learned some new stuff. I'm gonna have
to go smell my milkweeds now,see what they smell like,
because I've never done thatbefore. And everybody else
should too.
And let's do this again nextweek.
Chris (54:19):
Oh, we shall do this again next week. What a busy
time of the year it is. We gotour grow along growing along and
all other kinds of things goingon. So we're gonna have a guard
bite for you next week, folks.Well, listeners, thank you for
doing what you do best and thatis listening or if you're
watching us on YouTube watching.
And as always, keep on growing.Have we beaten the milkweeds
(54:52):
with a stick?
Ken (54:56):
Yeah. I'm trying to think. Is there anything else?
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