bs kite wrote:
Monarchs mating on Swamp Milkweed. This milkweed was just purchased and planted in my wildflower garden. The Monarchs love it. From what I have read, there are 9 species of MW and Swamp and Common are the Monarch's favorites.
Thank you for this link Bob. I've found that NWF nature documentations are *concise and accurate*. I greatly appreciate this. I was able scan your link in seconds and get the information that is needed regarding the importance of Milkweeds to Monarchs. In fact the key sentence (theme?) is the first sentence.
Thank you National Wildlife Federation.
btw, in my garden are Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), swamp milkweed (A. incarnata), and butterflyweed (A. tuberosa).
I think next season I will plant a few more incarnatas and tuberosas.
My wildflower garden is small (maybe 40 feet by 25 feet?). No problem........ because it all adds up and the pollinators find it quickly. Once those flowers start popping the pollinators are on them within hours to a couple of days. Each spring is a new adventure.
Each spring I spend some time at Broadway Gardens in South Portland. I prefer perennial wildflowers that are in a pot and already started (couple of feet high). Joe-Pye-Weed is wrongly named. It is not a weed. It is a highly valued wildflower, native to eastern NA. In my small garden there is a stand of Joe-Pye-Weed (also bought from Broadway Gardens about 6 years ago) that is a whooping 8 feet high!
Backyard crows were making quite a racket,continually flying back and forth, then swooping near the trees that separate my yard from my neighbor. Went to see what the ruckus was about, and here it is -Z9 with 180-600 @ 490mm, f8, 1/200, ISO 2500
