We have seen a few monarch butterflies in our yard this summer, but just this week, we saw something even better – a monarch caterpillar! The colorful creature was chewing its way up a spindly stalk of our butterfly milkweed.
Milkweed is the key to the survival of these graceful creatures.
Many plant butterfly bushes, which are nice and certainly attract monarchs and other butterflies, but monarchs can survive without butterfly bushes. They can’t, however, survive without milkweed plants. They lay their eggs on milkweed, only milkweed, and the larva rely on eating milkweed until they pupate. Without milkweed, they perish.
Milkweed is considered a nuisance and an eyesore by many. The highway people do their level best to eradicate milkweed with poisons, and many large landowners destroy their meadows where milkweed might grow and plant their hillsides in fescue.
The plight of the monarch is well known, but it is essential that homeowners do their part and plant a milkweed bush or two. For the monarch, milkweed is their only hope.