Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Balance of plants in the environment Could I convince you guys to plant Swamp Milkweed?

Thanks Citydad. My 2 packages of seeds came in the mail yesterday as well. I put them in the freezer and will pull them out when it gets closer to planting time.

Glad yall are getting em, if you havent in the next week or so shoot me another message and Ill check.

If you want MORE I buy form

https://www.americanmeadows.com/

Just found this site with resources for buying pollinator seed

https://xerces.org/pollinator-conservation/pollinator-conservation-seed-mixes

RAH- Thanks! Great links in there. Found some great bulk pasture seeding from one of those links

I'd love some seed! I have 3 swampy areas that get daylight. I already collect seed from common milkweed and butterfly milkweed. I do not have swamp milkweed. Message me for my address! This is a great thing you are doing and a good idea to reach people with environment.

I have added other native plants to my swampy area.

I might post this request for duck boxes!

How are yalls milkweed doing? Anyonew arm enough to bloom yet?

Bloom??? HA! That's a good one. We are supposed to have a low temp of 25 Tuesday night with snow in the forecast from 10:00 am Tuesday until 1:00 AM Wednesday. My seeds are still in the freezer.

I started a pollinator patch over the weekend with milkweed, clover, and mixed wild flowers. As we remove invasives from the back yard we have been overseeing with native grasses, berries and flowers.

My sack of seeds is still in the freezer. Weather guessers are guessing for 3"-5" snowfall here tomorrow night.
I'll get them started in mid-May when the soil temps are a bit more friendly to baby plants.

https://plants.usda.gov/factsheet/pdf/fs_asin.pdf

The "stalk type" native milkweed in our native grass areas always seem to lose their blooms by the time I see the butterflies around.

I do get tons of Monarchs on our "climbing type" of milkweed in the early fall.

Our state forest service does sell a "pollinator package". It consists of a range of plants that blossom very early in the season all of the way through to the first frost. The theory is that at least one of the plants will be blooming for any of the pollinators that are on your land.

I have not tried it yet, but the list of plants looks like it would almost certainly by "wife approved"!

Being in Florida I sometimes need reminders about the weather in more primitive parts of the country.

My pond water is 80*

As long as the plants have stalks and leaves for the caterpillars to eat the butterflies themselves will eat from almost any flower. The milkweed itself is for the babies. That goes for most butterflies that need a 'host' plant-> its for the caterpillars

My children are currently laboring on a treadmill to power my computer. Are you telling me that primitive practice is no longer acceptable?

Weatherwise, we are expecting snow again tonight!

I must say that watching the news, I am happy to live in a "primitive" area. Snow predicted for tomorrow night, but 67F here right now. We will lose all our apple blossoms.

The 5 pm news said we would have a killing freeze Wed, and Thursday night with temps in the mid 20's.

It's been snowing most of the day here in Misery.
We're likely to see night time lows in the upper 20s tonight and tomorrow night.
Apple trees are in full bloom, but they won't be after two nights of that.

And just because some of us wear overalls and only have one tooth it doesn't mean that we're primitive.

I moved here because it was not so developed (opposite of primitive - I had to look it up, lol). CD - I get your point...just having a bit if fun.

Augie - I thought you had more than one tooth?

My Polident smile fooled you. lol

Sounds like itll be a bad year for apples

The heavy snow clung to our heavy apple blooms and insulated them against the 25F temps. They made it through fine! The magnolias did not fair so well...

We might be that lucky here. Every open flower on our magnolia tree was toasted. The buds that hadn't yet opened came through ok.
The apple blossoms are looking a bit burnt, but they aren't dead and falling off. Peaches look about the same. Time will tell...

Anyone get any germination going?

My apple tree has an above-average crop this year. (South-central Kansas)

It also had zero winter kill on the branch tips. We hit -17F during the February snap.

We have lost many post oak and water oak trees that have to be close to 100 years old due to late hard freeze (-1) when some trees were early budding out. It’s sickening to see how widespread it is

I'm a little late to this thread, but we do love to try and promote butterfly habitat on our place in Iowa. We have been working to spread our common milkweed, and have many clusters of it growing now. We even had some pop up in our sweetcorn patch, which we let slide since they don't take up much space. We noticed this the other day:

Our first sighting of a monarch caterpillar of the season.

I have three itty-bitty marsh milkweeds that germinated from the seeds you sent.
They're about 2" tall right now, so still very fragile.

The marsh milkweed that we transplanted onto the pond dam two summers ago has made some babies.
The patch of common milkweed in the horse paddock has doubled in size from last summer.