Milkweed in South Florida

[NathanielsMom]

Last spring we planted a small milkweed plant in our yard (I'm sorry, I don't know the variety) that we got at Home Depot. The plant is growing by leaps and bounds and so is our caterpillar/butterfly population! We went back to Home Depot to buy another 2 (or 3, or 10 ) plants but we couldn't find any. Does anyone know of a good source of Milkweed plants in south Florida? We live in Homestead but travel up into Miami daily. Thanks in advance for any information you share!

[pianopete]

You can fairly quickly create your own potted milkweed plants. Trim your existing milk plant back and take the stalks and cut them into 6 to 8 inch lengths. Get some plastic cups at the grocery store and place the cut to length stalks into the cups with water..... Don't cut the stalks until you are ready to place them into water. For best results I've found, keep them in your house and in about 2 weeks they will root. Then you can immediately plant them or place them in cups with potting soil and place outdoors in a cool shady place to plant at a later date..... or, you can keep some in pots to move indoors for your cats to feed on. Also.... you can take larger stalks and just poke a hole in the ground, 6+ inches or so, keep watered, and the stalk will root and start growing. Milkweed is very easy to propagate. Soon you will have so much milkweed you will be giving starts to all your friends. I usually have a hundered or so growing in water cups that I give to neighbors, friends... etc etc. anyone I can.

[harpo787]

I asked this in another thread...but this seems the more appropriate place.

The 6-8 inch cuttings...can they be "bare"? I have a tropical milkweed that's been devoured by the cats, and they have no leaves left basically. Will they still root ok?

Also, would it be better for the cuttings if they have a few branches coming off rather than just being a straight stick?

For the cuttings that are sitting in water, you're not applying any sort of rooting formula? Just straight water? How much water should be in the cup?

[pianopete]

I don't think it much matters.... I've had potted plants that the cats have chewed bare, I trim off the stalks and just put them in water. This accomplishes two things. One: It starts a new plant, Two: Makes the trimmed plant put out additional stalks. I also do the same with the stalks of milkweed I trim back in our butterfly flower garden. During the rainy season you can generally accomplish the same thing by just putting the cut stalks directly in the ground... 6 inch deep or so. During the winter season when the weather is cooler, the stalks don't root as easily but can still be done. I usualy only get about 25% success during the winter months.... but almost 100% success during the summer months. Size of cup and amount of water...... bigger is better.

[harpo787]

Rather than start a new thread, I think this can be placed in here.

I'm thinking about the cut back and put in cups method that PianoPete mentioned. I've got 3 milkweeds and they're starting to droop/sag on a daily basis. They're not in the ground, but in pots.

I'm curious on a few things. If I cut back the plant a decent amount, can I avoid having to buy bigger pots, since the root system would not have to feed so much plant?

Secondly, the stalks in water. Do you just place the stalks straight in and let them rest on the lip of the cup, or do you have them wedged/tied or held upright somehow?

Finally, during the roughly 2 week period that you grow them there, do you change the water at all?

Thanks for the help!

[pianopete]

I can talk to my experience. I have 15 or so plastic pots of milkweed (like you would by at the nursury) that I have been cutting back for over a year. I never change the pot. I keep these pots because I often bring a pot indoors, cover it with a mesh net, and let the cats eat on it. At this point the milkweed in the pot is usually about 2+ feet tall. When the cats have stripped all the leaves off the plant, I take the pot back outdoors, cut it back to about 6 inches, and bring in another pot. The cuttings I put in large plastic cups that are filled with water.... cups like you'd get at the grocery store, or Costco. If the cuttings are long, as they often are, I cut them into approximately 6-8 inch lengths. While that are in the water rooting, I keep them indoors on the southern exposure side of the house. I find that if I keep them indoors I have fewer problems with the water going foul. Once a nice root ball has formed on the cuttings, I transplant them into similar cups containing a potting mix. Keep them in a shady place outdoors, and moist. You have to be careful because the roots at this point are very delicate and will easily break off. After a few weeks in the potting soil, I have nice healthy milkweed plants which I give away or plant in the garden. During the summer months this method for me has proven to be very effective. Yes, there are many other ways of doing this. During the summer months I have had good success just sticking a cutting 4 - 6 inches directly in the ground with a rooting compound.... however, the soil needs to stay moist, and preferably not in the direct sun. Some folk claim they have good luck by bending a salk over until it touches the ground, cover it with soil, and wait a couple of weeks or so and it will form roots at the point of contact with the ground. They then cut the rooted stalk free and plant. Milkweed is a weed, and it is very easy to grow. I've had as many as 100 new plants growing in the cups.

[Paul Cherubini]

pianopete, could you tell us about the patterns of monarch abundance you observe in your area of Florida (SE coast)? In other words, do you commonly see monarch adults on the wing all year long? Or are the adults rare or absent in certain months of the year? Ditto in regards to caterpillar abundance. I've never visited south Florida so that's why I ask. Thanks.

[pianopete]

We have monarchs year around. This past winter (Jan-Apr 2006) was very active in our area (Palm Beach County)..... in fact it seemed to be more active than the summer months for monarchs. Over the past year (May 2005 to May 2006) we collected eggs from the milkweed in our butterfly garden, raised, and released back into the wild 375 monarchs. This does not include the number of monarchs eggs that remained outdoors and grew from egg to adult monarchs naturally. At any time during the day year around you can see 2-4 monarchs flitting about in the butterfly garden.... and often many more. Our butterfly garden has 4 patches of milkweed, with 10-15 plants per patch.... mostly tropical milkweed, with some giant milkweed, and others. In addition to monarchs, we have plants that attract the black swallowtail, polydamas swallowtail, giant swallowtail, gulf fritillary, cassius blue, white peacock, and various skippers and moths. You can see some of our photos at: http://pianopete.blogspot.com/

[harpo787]

pianopete: nice photographs! If at all possible, I'd like to see your "operation" sometime. I live roughly in the Ft. Lauderdale area, so I'm probably a good 45 - 60 minutes away, but I find it all very fascinating and worth the trip. A few months back my mom and I made the trip to the Morikami (sp?) gardens, which were beautiful.

Anyways, as I said, I'd like to get a good look at what you do (netting on the plants?) and how you do it.

Would this be possible? I'm in school Monday thru Thursday from 10 am to 2 pm and off Friday thru Sunday.

Hope to hear back soon!

[flgflowers]

I live in Central Fl and have lots of tropical milkweed. However, I tried
to grow another kind (don't recall which variety) and couldn't get them (4 plants) past about 10 inches in height. They only lived about six months, never looked healthy, and then they just died. Is there anyone else in Central Fl who is having luck with other varities of milkweed?

[freda]

Oops! I’ve been rereading older posts but somehow missed this thread and started a new, identical one today…sorry! Jim may want to move my post and add it to this one.

I don’t remember seeing wild common milkweed in our area of Florida but will actively search it out this year. We have a large screened pool room which could well become our “fresh air habitat” for the winter! I’ll continue to watch this thread for more information on finding local plants. Again, sorry about the duplication.

[freda]

I just spent some time looking at piano pete's blog and am now so excited about the butterflies that we can expect to find in Florida this winter!! We're on the Gulf Coast side but should still have lots of butterflies. Great blog!

Freda

[freda]

I bought milkweed from a good plant nursery close to our winter home in Estero, Florida. The first purchase was great, with several eggs which matured into healthy-appearing Monarchs. The next purchase was obviously affected by chemicals and we lost a lot of cats. I followed all the suggestions: cut the plants back, flooded the pots with water, waited weeks before 'using' the plants again.

In the meanwhile, since I only had three months to work on this project, I needed an injection of good healthy plants. Shady Oak Butterfly Farm near Gainsville shipped BEAUTIFUL plants in 4" pots. www.butterfliesetc.com. I pinched them all back a bit... enough to force branching but not enough to reduce the immediate leaf supply. I did slip some of them but planted most of them directly from the 4" pots for next year.