Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: Butterfly garden pests, 1 by beckygardener

beckygardener wrote:
fly_girl - I am quite sure that those bugs in the photo are the Milkweed Beetles. And the smaller ones on the seed pod are baby (nymph) Milkweed Beetles. There are probably (just a guess) about a thousand or so in my yard right now. My first year growing Scarlet MW, I didn't really see any MW Beetles, but after that first year, I now seem to get more and more each year. Probably because I currently have about 90-100 Scarlet MW plants in my yard. The more plants, the more insects, I guess.

I don't know what they are feeding off of because the MW is about gone from the Monarch cats. Though .... I keep seeing more baby cats scavaging around for food. (I am sitting here shaking my head.) I've just never imagined so many Monarch cats at one time. I finally released the last Monarch butterfly from all the chrysalises in the hatchery. BUT .....I just pulled down all the chrysalises hanging in the two cages and will be adding 37 more chrysalis to the hatchery. It seems never ending. But .... I don't think there will be many more. No more MW in my yard for the Monarchs to actually lay eggs on. (I hope they stay away from the bare stalks and branches.) I am getting ready to cut them all back to about 4" from the ground. I stick the stalks in large trash bags with the beetles on them and send them off with the garbage pick up. Unfortunately, all the MW that I cut back over the past 2 weeks are now starting to show new leaves, so do you suppose this cycle will continue? I really thought the Monarchs would migrate further south. Maybe my area IS "south" for them. I have no idea. But there are Monarch butterflies all over my yard every day. This is December almost January. I am beginning to think we are going to have a warm winter. That's good .... and bad at the same time.

Does anyone know if Swamp Milkweed and the Pink Milkweed are as prone to investations of the beetles? I've gotten seeds for those from some of you here on this forum and am trying to germinate them from seed.

I am going to be laying out and preparing the bog garden bed along the back fence within the next few days and I want to plant some swamp milkweed in with the other bog plants/seeds I have. I am surprised to be learning about all the bog/wet area plants that butterflies like. Perfect for the very back of my yard. There IS lots of "SWAMP LAND" in Florida. Even in my neighborhood. LOL

This message was edited Dec 26, 2006 7:12 PM