Doing our part for Monarch Butterfly Habitat

Milkweed Stand

As everyone knows, Monarch butterflies will only lay eggs on milkweed plants. The caterpillars only eat milkweed, so having lots of milkweed is crucial to the butterflies life cycle. And, who doesn't like seeing big beautiful Monarch butterflies around?

One of the things we grow at the Estate is milkweed. Milkweed is a main part of Monarch habitat, and we grow a lot of it! At the front of the property, there is a huge milkweed stand that I let come back every year. Since we bought the property, the milkweed stand has nearly quadrupled in size. Currently, the area of highest concentration is about 175 feet by 75 feet. I do disc up the ground in the fall and even again in the early spring to try to keep the other weeds to a minimum, but that doesn't stop or even slow down the milkweed. When we first bought the property, this area was overrun with invasive Spotted Knapweed. It grew so thick that nothing else could come up. After heavy plowing and discing multiple times in one summer, I was able to mostly get rid of it from this area. That allowed the milkweed that was there to spread quite a lot. Now, it have 90% milkweed and 10% assorted grass/weeds in this area.

Spotted Knapweed

In the fall, we collect some of the seed pods and distribute them around the Estate to help establish new milkweed stands. We also make them available to people who may be looking to start some milkweed stands of their own. My wife and daughter love to see butterflies and pollinators at the plants and know we are doing our part for the butterflies.

Besides butterflies, all kinds of pollinators like the milkweed flowers. When it's quiet, you can sometime actually hear the buzz from all the bees in the flowers. It's very cool to hear and a little unnerving since I have an aversion to being stung. Luckily, the bees are busy doing their thing and aren't really interested in me walking around in the area.

Common milkweed flowers

We can't wait to see how many Monarch butterflies visit our milkweed this year. It's not uncommon to see 10 or more flying around when we visit. The best part is there are still plants coming up. Some came up early, but there are still new plants almost everyday! With all the rain this year, it could be a great year for the milkweed stand.