When I first saw the pods last fall behind the new house, I was pleased. After all, I love monarchs as much as the next person and I'd never seen milkweed growing on any property I'd ever owned before.
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| Milkweed beetle? |
I'm all for helping out, so I let the pods be. I guess I assumed that since milkweed is vanishing, it must be relatively delicate from the survival standpoint. Nothing to worry about.
Um, wrong.
It grew back this spring with a vengeance. There's now a huge GROVE of milkweed swallowing the septic system, and colonists have staked claims all over the yard.
It makes me sad to be part of the problem, but in the end it's not a hard decision. This patch of ground just can't sustain both livestock and monarchs.
Talk about that inch/mile adage - that is some healthy-looking milkweed! I had to get rid of mine, once the sheep came. I do see some here and there, but not a lot of it.
ReplyDeleteIf you mow it down regularly, it will go away. Kind of too bad though, I wonder what you might make of the milkweed fluff. it is a pretty fiber, although I have absolutely no clue if anything can be done with it since I have no clue about spinning or weaving in general. It will take over though if you let it.
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