Plant native and they will come. ✨🦋✨ (fb)

This rainy weather may not be great for outdoor events, but it sure is helpful to our plants! These common milkweed plants (Asclepias syriaca) have begun bursting into bloom. We wish you could smell them! So good!🤌 Our native milkweeds are beautiful, not just in appearance but in how they support entire lifecycles of monarch butterflies! Milkweed is the *only* host plant for monarch butterflies, meaning without milkweed, these friends cannot survive. Females lay eggs on milkweed leaves, which the caterpillars eat upon hatching. Adult butterflies feed on the nectar of the milkweed blooms. Other non-native plants, like butterfly bush (Buddleja davidii) will attract adult butterflies looking for nectar, leading many to believe that they are beneficial, however these non-native plants cannot support the beginning stages of butterfly life cycles, and without caterpillars, there are no butterflies! Please note - butterfly *weed* (Asclepias tuberosa) is different than butterfly *bush* - butterfly weed is a species of native milkweed, while butterfly bush is a non-native shrub. Read your plant labels carefully! Plants like milkweed showcase the interconnectedness native plants bring to our ecosystem. Planting native is planting to support life! (fb)