No, I have not hit my head and seeing stars. I have been seeing patches of white in the ditch and they sparkle in the sunlight. Not that we have had much sunshine lately.
It’s kind of funny ..you see white in the ditch this time of year and you think snow.
The Milkweed seeds are escaping the pods one by one…like little parachuters jumping out of an airplane. Milkweed seed has a wonderful dispersal system..on windy days they can fly for a long way on an air currant.
It must have been a good year for Milkweed..they must enjoy the dry warm weather that we had all summer. Although some plants will put out lots of seeds in the years that they are stressed..one last ditch effort to survive.
I collected a bit of seed from the roadside. One of these days I will take out a shovel and plant some of the seeds out in the wild gardens and along our driveway. The seeds will get their cold treatment this winter which will spur them onto germination with the snowmelt or the spring rains.
Milkweed is the only food for the Monarch butterfly larva. Back in 1999 – 2002 we had hundreds of Monarchs all summer long. This summer we had a few..and all of our milkweed was eaten down to the stem with no chance to produce any seed..so I hope we can get some more Milkweed growing:)
Thought I’d let you know that about 4-5 years ago and again last year, I bought some bloodflowers at my local greenhouse. I like to try new garden plants every year. The bloodflower is related to the milkweed but are annuals in our climate zone (North Dakota). Monarchs were attracted to them and I saw several monarch caterpillars, one of which spun its cocoon. I kept a close eye on the cocoon but missed the emergence of the monarch. According to info from the internet, the bloodflower is also known as Indian root and swallow wort. I saved many seeds from the plants but sent them all to my dad in Idaho. As a family, we collected butterflies during my childhood and my dad is passionate about helping them out when he can; due to the lovely “progress of civilization”, natural habitats of insects and other wildlife is continually being disturbed and destroyed.