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Interesting. In my area (Southern California), the Monarchs seem to really prefer the Tropical (Asclepias curassavica). We plante it when a local Monarch enthusiast recommended it. Now that we're more educated, we've been gradually getting rid of it.

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Ah, I never even attempted the tropical since it's not native, so I don't know how ravenous they'd be for it. I just contrast narrow-leaf to showy since those are the two commonly sold native CA milkweeds, and my caterpillars are just so incredibly not into the showy, it might as well not be milkweed.

We were pretty ignorant when we started our Monarch garden. It was 20 years ago, and there was less readily-available information.

Yeah, to be fair, I'm in that situation with swallowtails right now. I planted non-native dill, and it's swamped with happy swallowtails, as I didn't know about the native Yampah. Hope to replace the dill with yampah next year. Until then, the swallowtails shall have a dill buffet.

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