Attention monarch butterfly fans: Here are 5 places to buy native milkweed msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Butterfly fans, take a breath. I
know it’s officially spring and we’re all pounding on nursery doors, anxious to plant some California native milkweed to help the endangered Western monarch butterfly stay afloat since,
yes, milkweed is the only thing its caterpillars will eat and nonnative varieties appear to be hastening its demise.
But here’s the thing: Native milkweeds are still slowly coming back to life.
Native milkweeds especially narrow-leaf milkweed, the most prominent variety in California are just now emerging from dormancy, a normal, natural thing that won’t be hurried no matter how we plead, said Patty Roess, manager of the retail portion of the Tree of Life Nursery in San Juan Capistrano, one of Southern California’s premier growers of native plants. “We’ve tried growing native milkweed in different conditions and it’s the same. You can’t change what the plant wants to be: a summer bloomer that goes dormant in midwinter.”
This is not a drill. California is poised to lose the Western monarch butterfly and its mysterious annual migration from the continent’s Western regions to the coastal areas between Baja and Mendocino.
The list for blame is long habitat destruction, insecticides, herbicides and, yes, good intentions, because if you’ve ever planted a showy orange and red milkweed in Southern California with the goal of helping the monarch, consider yourself part of the problem.
So why should we care? First off, caterpillars are a critical food source for most songbirds, which rely heavily on the insects to feed their young. Second, butterflies, like bees, are important pollinators. Adult monarchs sip nectar from many blossoms, and as they flit among flowers, they are also spreading pollen, helping the plants produce seeds, which also feed birds and other wildlife and, of course, help the plant reproduce.