does milkweed ever grow back

[greylie]

Hi.. I spend a lot of money buying milkweed in the shopping center and am never sure it if is safe to feed it to my caterpillars.. when they have everything gnawed down the plant will never come back and just dries out and dies.... do I do something wrong?? I live in southern Florida.

[Twilton]

Hi greylie . . . I live in Southwest FL, and have tons of milkweed in my garden. After it is totally eaten to the stems, mine grows back. I usually take this opportunity to cut it way down, so it will come in fuller. I've also had milkweed go to seed, so have lots of volunteer plants. The older milkweed plants do seem to die off, and at times I run out of food for the caterpillars, but the crawl off and hopefully find more food in someone elses yard. Just make sure your plants get enough water, and they should be fine.

[Sarah]

One other good rule of thumb is to leave at least 6 inches of stem. Cut back further than that and the plant will either die or will be weak when it grows back.

[Keith Petrosky]

Besides the cold temperatures, it is very hard to kill milkweed. I had milkweed that was eaten away from caterpillars, and the stem was rotted and paper thin from no water in 2 weeks, during the summer. I threw the plant away in the garbage. It rained that night, and I checked on the plant that morning, and there were little green buds all over! That was 2 years ago, and I still have the plant to this day, its spreading it's seeds!