Fast Growing Milkweed

[sgore]

Two weeks ago my Milkweed was stripped of all leaves, today they have leafed back out and today I got more eggs. That was fast, I thought it would take much longer. Waiting for the cats to get about an inch and a half long and then I will put them in jars. My favorite jars are wide mouth pickle jars.

[Keith Petrosky]

Yeah they are a hardy plant. When I cut my milkweed two new stems grow everytime, im up to a 5-stemmed milkweed plant!

[sgore]

Keith, are you saying just by trimming the milkweed back it makes another stem? The reason I am asking last year I bought a small milkweed plant for about $1.25 and it grew really fast and my neighbor told me to trim it back some, so one of the stems I just stuck in the ground and it lived but didn't grow very fast and then later I put it in a pot and it just sat there. I then gave it to my other neighbor and this spring he planted it in the ground and it is mostly one long stem. If he trims it back will it then start making other stems. Thanks for answering as the other day I was wondering how to get it to stem out.

[Keith Petrosky]

I live in NY and right now the weather is perfect so I keep my Mexican Milkweed which has been alive for 3 years outside now. I water is everyday so it does not dry out. It had 2 stems, one had flowers, the other did not. I cut the one who's flowers had died, and a few days later at the base of the stem was new growth. It turns out not one but 2 seperate stems grew out, now I have 3 stems! I keep mine in a pot, not in the ground.

[John Beaulieu]

Keith

When you say that you have had the Mexican milkweed alive for 3 years outside, do you mean that it has been indoors for the winter or has it proved hardy for you? Here in central Ontario we would only be 1 or 2 zones different from NY and I assume that I must harvest seed or bring plants indoors once the cold weather hits.

[Keith Petrosky]

I kept them inside for the winter, and outside during the spring and summer.

[sgore]

My eggs from the 17th of July came up missing, no cats, what could have got them? Help please.

[Pat]

What did you have in the jar with them? I used to take the whole leaf or branch on which an egg was laid, but lost eggs to (I think) tiny little spiders, earwigs and other hitchhikers that came along with the leaves. Now if I find an egg, I just snip a triangle out of the leaf with the egg, and I put that little piece on a damp paper towel and wait a few days until I see that there's a caterpillar there.

Sometimes I have seen a caterpillar turn right around and eat its own eggshell, but a lot of them don't. So make sure you don't have little caterpillars under the leaves!

Also, some of my eggs have turned out to be duds, they stay clear, never turn creamy-colored or dark where you can see the caterpillar inside. Guess those are infertile.

[sgore]

I didn't put them in jars, I usually don't put them in jars untill they are about an inch and half long because I noticed that is when the birds notice them and eat them. My neighbors eggs were lost too. I wonder if they were duds. I didn't realize eggs could be duds. My plants are full of leaves and I'm just waiting now for more eggs.

[Keith Petrosky]

I had my first naturally-laid monarch egg on my milkweed plant, and a yellow jacket ate the caterpillar after it drank nectar from the milkweed's flower.

[Pat]

I saw the same thing with a wasp last weekend -- two caterpillars on one branch, the wasp already had one half-eaten but I managed to rescue the other one and pop it into one of the safe boxes.