I am getting ready to plant some parsley. Last year, it was near the milkweed. I never saw anyone on the parsley, but I did have plenty of monarch catepillars on the milkweed. Should I continue to plant it close to the milkweed? Do you think that it would make a difference?
Parsley placement
Do you not still have the other parsley? Maybe it dies back in your area? I have not had much action on my parsley this year, I moved it from a morning sun location to a mid day sun area last fall. That may have been a mistake for me. I am going to plant more myself this year in a different location that gets the morning sun. I miss my BST action.
You two have inspired me to plant more parsley. I lined a new driveway edge area with 10 parsley plants, hoping to catch the BST's eye. Will throw some Dill seed behind it. Don't know if that will be attractive enough for them, though.
You brought up 'placement' of the host plants, and I think that's an interesting concept that before this spring I hadn't thought a lot about. So I researched in my butterfly gardening book for our area ('The Live Cycles of Butterflies' by Burris) and they mentioned asclepias tuberosa and buddleia as two of the favorite BST nectaring plants (here), so I'm adding a few MW tuberosas nearby, too. Now we'll have to see if that works. Of course the author mentions dill, fennel and Queen Anne's Lace as the host plants they have had the best luck with.
I have most of my butterfly nectar/host plants crammed into one 50 foot long border and I have started to separate them out into grouping around the yard so that each different kind of butterfly can at least see each plant. Right now it's a jumbled mass of green stuff in the garden!
Are you finding various MW plants hard to come by in your nurseries this year? Around here there's a scarcity (I think) because the newspaper did a big story on Butterfly Gardening a few weeks ago and the garden centers sold out. Now what to do?! (-:
I decided to just tuck the parsley in near the milkweed. Sheila, my parsley wintered over one year, but it is gone this year. I started some more from seed, and picked up a couple of small seedlings.
I may just scatter some dill seed around as well.
Tabasco, I'm happy to hear about newspaper article. The more people become aware, the better off we will be. I wish that I could help you with your shortage though.
I never see any milkweed other than Asclepias curassavica down here, but then it is usually winter hardy for us in this area. The older plants, Mex. MW to us, are up almost 3 foot and blooming. I am going to cut some back and root for instant plants elsewhere in the garden. I have gotten seeds for swamp MW (A. incarnata) from others on DG and those are doing fine. Should have a nice group of plants by the time the Monarchs return.
As for the parsley....I took the clippers to it and cut off most of the seed heads. I didn't discard them though. I put a long piece of wet foam in a tray and stuck all of them in it. I laid down a tower cage and slid the whole thing in side. I will keep it for at least 4 days and then look carefully at each piece for cats before discarding it.