Your Climate Friendly Backyard
Hart Hagan
This is a brown-belted bumblebee (Bombus grisecollis) crawling all over a common milkweed in my front yard earlier this week.
https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipPNDp4INuz3hsIbECC5DJF124TqTkYc7P209pZa
Famously, the milkweed feeds monarch butterflies. But it feeds the caterpillar stage. The adult monarch can feed from many different plants. And many different pollinators and nectar feeders--there’s a difference--can feed off the bloom of the milkweed.
I’ve found that common milkweed grows very well amid competition, once-established. Getting it established can be a little tricky.
Transplanting can be more challenging than other wildflowers, because it requires not damaging the rhizome, the lateral “root” (I’m told it’s actually a stem) by which the plant spreads and reproduces.
I’ve had good luck germinating common milkweed in pots, but not so much casting the seed onto the ground, especially where there is competition or mulch. Some wildflowers grow just fine, thank you, on top of mulch, e.g., cup plant, swamp marigold, white crownbeard and jewelweed, and I take advantage of this trait, but they are in the minority.
The underreported story, in my view, is the climate benefits of your pollinator garden. Native plant diversity is great for drawing down carbon and creating a cool, moist microclimate. Also, a diversity of native plant species, raised organically and regeneratively, can go far to prevent both flooding and drought.
If you would like to have a conversation about wildflowers and pollinator gardens, you are cordially invited to this webinar:
Your Climate Friendly Backyard, via Zoom this coming Monday at 7:00 PM.
Register here by clicking on the link in the comments:
Your Climate-Friendly Backyard — Monday, June 22 — 7:00–8:30 PM (ET)
https://harthagan.kit.com/d49396fcef