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Comment by ArcaneMoose | Hacker News Reader

My wife really loves Monarchs so we have planted a garden of milkweed and butterfly bushes. Monarchs will lay their eggs and then we make sure the caterpillars are doing well and have plenty of food. When they reach 5th instar and look for a place to turn into a chrysalis, we put them in a mesh enclosure to keep them safe and then release them once they emerge as butterflies!

It's been such an exciting thing to do every year and the kids love helping out too. It's a fun, satisfying, and easy way to help out! Highly recommend :)

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FYI to anyone out there considering this- don't plant tropical milkweed:

"Another problem with tropical milkweed is that it harbors a one-celled parasite, Ophryocystis elektroscirrha, called OE for short. Because tropical milkweed does not die out in winter, the parasite does not die back either. Monarchs with large numbers of this parasite – which coevolved with monarchs and does not infect other species – are born with crumpled wings and cannot fly; the less infected are smaller, have shorter lifespans, fly poorly or are unsuccessful at mating. Only the healthiest butterflies reach overwintering areas in Mexico; butterflies with this parasite do not survive long migrations. "

https://www.cambridgeday.com/2024/08/03/more-abut-monarch-bu...

Additionally don't plant butterfly bush, it's considered an invasive noxious weed and illegal in a few US states (at least Washington and Oregon, possibly New York). https://invasivespecies.wa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Bu...

This always seems like a stretch to me? I have two large butterfly bushes in my ~2000 sqft pollinator garden (NorCal) and they seem to perform only moderately; I.e. they attract significantly less pollinators than almost any other plant in the garden. Lavender, salvia, sage, rosemary, Mexican sage, Mexican marigolds, poppies, and daisies all attract way more pollinators even though they are smaller.

Those bushes not attracting many pollinators doesn't make them less invasive or noxious.

True, but they aren’t invasive here (NorCal, they are “potentially invasive” because they are invasive elsewhere, but do not spread) and native butterflies can use them as a host species here.

I don't know about the US but in most of France and Belgium they are everywhere, they grow like weeds, including on badly maintained brickwork, they seem to be especially suited to urban areas.

All these other plants you mentioned do attract pollinators but they don't propagate as well, they are only where they have been planted at least around here. Even on the warmer Atlantic coast, rosemary and lavender grow well but they don't propagate nearly as much by themselves as butterfly bush (Buddleja) does.

I have two butterfly bushes in upstate NY. They are not invasive here; they struggle to survive cold winters (being killed back to the roots and recovering only partially.) They show no signs of spreading. When I lived near Chicago, they wouldn't survive cold winters at all.

It's super hardy and opportunistic. It's not uncommon here in the UK to see it growing out of cracks in brickwork at the tops of buildings.

The best case is to use the native Milkweed in your geo. Source that if you can. However, in a lot of places only tropical milkweed is available. You can still grow it, but like the parent suggests, it is a problem if you let it survive the winter. Cut it down to the roots post summer.

??? You can order seedlings online.

Monarchs are so amazing. I recall in the early 1980s in Lake Tahoe, they would cover entire trees during their migrations. They are the most amazing evolutionary creatures migrating 2,000+ miles over multiple generations, whereby every 3rd? gen on the migration is the Super Generation that has all the 'Valkeryie' Genes that transmit the genetic knowledge forth...

Monsanto and pavement killed the Monarch.

Milkweed is fundamental to the eco system, and (this is IMO) due to its very fluidic and milky nectar that was consumed by many, it was an easy vector for Glyphosate which is literally feeding Krokodile (russian battery-acid-heroin) to Planet earth. - but being the Monarchs Sole food....

We are doomed to the petrochem blight (its not about "electrical power" -- its about forever chemicals and extinct entire food chains.

---

There is a great documentary on Teflon called "The Devil We Know" - regarding teflon forever chemicals in all of us. I was milling about in the garage and I needed some tape for the hose I was fixing - an I grabbed a roll of teflon tape for the threading -- then it hit me.

My dad owned the Timberland Water Company in Tahoe. growing up he was plumbing here and plumbing there... every where a plumber plumbed the teflon tape was there too...

Also, growing up in Tahoe - we were big skiiers - and to eschew the snow we would spray ScotchGuard all over our clothes. ScotchGuard is Liquid Teflon Aerosol Spray. Yum and we would spray ourselves down in that while wearing our snow gear.

>Krokodile (russian battery-acid-heroin)

I had to look up how it's made after you said that. What I found:

The simple and cheap domestic production process involves boiling 80-400mg of codeine with a diluting agent (mostly paint thinner that may contain lead, zinc or ferrous agents), gasoline, hydrochloric acid, iodine, and red phosphorous (which is scraped from the striking surfaces on matchboxes). In this process, desomorphine is generated from codeine (3-methylmorphine) via two intermediate steps (alpha-chlorocodide and desocodeine). The process takes 10-45 minutes. The final product is a suspension that contains desomorphine as the psychoactive core, along with all other agents involved in the production process.

Krokodile was a common catch-all slang word for drugs of unknown origin when I was a teenager.

> chlorocodide

This really is evocative of "crocodile", very interesting coincidence between that and the skin damage caused by iv use of the drug

Note for anyone in the UK or Europe: summer lilac (a type of butterfly bush) is highly invasive and spreads easily. In the UK consider planting native alternatives such as gorse which flower for most of the year. When gorse doesn’t flower, lavender will. For butterflies consider cow parsley.

We've let the garden go wild this year (and last) because we're concentrating on other things. I can't help but notice how much the bees love the cow parsley that's sprung up, as well as the purple toadflax. Haven't seen butterflies on them unfortunately, they've declined to such an extent that now just seeing one is an occasion to point them out to my family.

> highly invasive and spreads easily

If that were the case you would expect to see large growths of it in the wild, right? Whilst I do see it in the wild, I've never seen any situation where it looks to be taking over. I just see individual plants occasionally.

My reference for "highly invasive and spreads easily" is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impatiens_glandulifera#Invasiv..., which has by now completely taken over most clear and shady areas in and near forests where I live. Summer lilac is definitely far from being that bad.

(I live in the South of Germany, but the UK, where it was originally introduced in the 19th century, seems to also have a huge problem with it: https://www.cabi.org/invasivespecies/species/himalayan-balsa...)

That is not summer lilac. This is:

https://vibrantgardenblog.wordpress.com/2016/12/02/buddleia-...

fwiw the railway verges in london seem to be predominantly this - which also incidentally - i've never heard anyone call Summer Lilac before

> I've never seen any situation where it looks to be taking over. I just see individual plants occasionally.

Each one of those individual plants can produce 40.000 seeds each year, so give them a decade alone and you will see. Is very invasive on river beds and disturbed soils.

I really don't think gorse needs any help getting planted.

UK belongs to Europe?

Ceanothus and the mophead relative Hydrangea serrata can attract Butterflies in summer or spring, but Buddleja is still wonderful in this sense. The hunt for the elusive sterile Buddleja stills keeps going. Lots of promises in that sense with very complex hybrids, but they still didn't stuck with the market or didn't deserved the hype.

Gorse in a small garden can be complicated to manage. Too spiny and it reseeds itself. Rosmary or Leptospermum can take that job.

We plant both "swamp" milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) and common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) and the monarchs seem to vastly prefer the former for their babies. The one disadvantage, depending on how much you hate bugs, is that the swamp milkweed attracts a large variety of other polinators including various bees, flies, and some scary looking though harmless wasps[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphex_ichneumoneus

I've seen one of those wasps dragging a relatively large huntsman spider across the ground. Not sure if I got a photo or not. Nature at it's brutal best.

My son and I had an incredible time watching one devour a caterpillar whole. Ghastly. Riveting.

One of the neighbors down the street did that with the patch of ground between the sidewalk and the street. Even though it's not a large area, she mixed in several different plants for the butterflies and it's amazing how many of them it attracts even in that little bit of space. Her biggest struggle is with keeping people from letting their dogs piss on the plants. Even with signs asking them to please keep their dogs from harming the plants there are some people who just don't care.

Thank you for doing this. I would also recommend doing the same for other pollinators as well, native bees, wasps, moths etc. all need our help. The best way to do it is follow the steps to create a certified native wildlife habitat. I converted my backyard into one and I see the difference in the variety of pollinators I see now vs when I moved in. If anyone is interested on how to do it: https://www.nwf.org/CERTIFY

TLDR: Add hosts plants for the larva. Add food sources (nectar and pollen) for the pollinators. Add safe resting spaces (old logs, leaf litter etc). Provide water. Native plants work the best, but that doesn’t mean you only have them, non natives also can be useful.

With my kids we've done the same. We have some "wild area" near me. Collect the milkweed pods left over in the fall and plant some here and there.

I do wish there was a good way to measure helping other than say "I just planted some".

Thank you for doing this.

I'd like to do the same. Any suggestions for getting started?

Not who you replied to, but we do this with our kids. The only things are you need are a milkweed patch (there are many varieties besides the big ugly broad-leaf ones you see everywhere) and and a mesh enclosure off Amazon for a few bucks. The process is:

You go out, look for the tiny eggs on the milkweed, bring the milkweed leaves in, wait for them to hatch, and bring in fresh milkweed leaves for food once a day. We put them in a paper-towel-lined baking pan so that they have something soft to crawl on if they wander off to taste-test new leaf. They start out rather tiny and grow to into big fat caterpillars. Eventually they stop eating to go on walkabout and anchor themselves somewhere near the top of the enclosure. (Sometimes they are dumb and you have to relocate them with pins or tape.) Once they emerge as butterflies, set them free.

We do black swallowtails too. They like dill and parsely.

We never get tired of it. We have had 20-something butterflies at a time in a 2-sqft enclosure.

Do you really need to go though all this trouble? We just plant a bunch of swan plants (milkweed) and watch the caterpillar and monarch populations go nuts. Add a bunch of flowers they like too (like zinnias) and that's about all I do.

The survival rate is only about 6%. If you put them in the enclosure most of them survive.

We just stayed at a fireplace where they do it. It's very satisfing, no trouble

Not sure if the wild milkweed out here in VT is the "big ugly broad-leaf one", but I think they are amazing plants. And I love the alien-looking pods with the almost fractal arrangement of fluff seeds inside. The flowers are interesting too if only because of their brevity, they only last a few days. I love watching the milkweed grow over the summer. Burdock too. Incredible plants.

Yeah it (Asclepias syriaca) is a really interesting lovely plant. I let it grow in patches out in my back field (southern Ontario). Last few days there's been some monarchs flapping around there breeding. Kinda wish I'd let more grow, but if I don't mow back there the whole area gets overrun with sumacs.

There was a company out of Quebec that was trying to commercialize making clothing with the fibers from the seed pods. They're not quite long enough to spin, but they make an excellent substitute for down for stuffing.

I have to wonder if some good old fashioned selective breeding could produce a milkweed variety that produces fiber in the pods suitable for textile industry.

There was a selective breeding program during World War II to make rubber from the milkweed latex. I swear the annual crop from my back forty could have supplied the entire allied war effort but evidently the quality of the rubber was poor and alas the effort was abandoned.

The fiber on the silk from the mature pods is too short and lacks the scales that cotton has to make it useful for textiles. It is the bast fibers from the stems that make fairly good fiber but the moisture content is very high so unlike flax the fiber tends to just rot during retting.

Yeah the QC company is using the silk for stuffing for mittens, as a kind of down replacement: https://lasclay.com/en/products/mittens

Which seems promising to me, at least.

Again it seems like a plant that with some smart old fashioned selective breeding could be made a lot more useful. But that kind of horticultural work has on the whole fallen out of fashion, it seems.

Obligatory comment to avoid planting Asclepias curassavica (aka tropical milkweed, often found in big box stores), in favor of any of the native species.

For the healthiest to butterfly option, your milkweed should die back yearly in whatever climate you plant it.

This helps encourage butterflies to migrate at the appropriate time and prevents parasite load from building up.

https://www.science.org/content/article/plan-save-monarch-bu...

Alternatively, you can cut it back yearly... but safer to just get ahold of a local species.

I'd suggest doing some research before planting stuff. I recently read that it's suggested to not plant milkweed (and to be ensure you cut it back seasonally if milkweed is appropriate) if you live in certain areas as it may otherwise disrupt their migration.

If you're looking to attract butterflies there are other endangered butterflies that can use your help. E.g. the Misison blue butterfly likes certain species of lupine. Black swallowtails, while not endangered, love dill. Don't underestimate how much even just a couple caterpillars will eat.

Other fauna seem a lot less picky. The hummingbirds out here seem to like the natives and "exotics" equally. The leafcutter and carpenter bees too. If you're in California, Calscape (dot org) is a great resource. And if you're in the Bay Area there are plenty of nurseries that specialize in native landscaping that can offer guidance. In the LA area, check out the Theodore Payne Foundation.

I had about 13 of these caterpillers from the butterflys that came after I planted my garden. After they got big and fat, a huge fat toad came on to the pot and snacked on literally all of them.

I had the same, except in my case, it was wasps and birds.

It's just as well, many of the native birds we care about (whose population is generally also declining along with many of the native insects) need a diet that is an overwhelming majority of insects (Often over 90%, ending up numbering multiple thousand caterpillar larva consumed) in order to successfully raise young. Bird seed doesn't cut it, it's high fat and nowhere near enough protein. Protein as a percentage of dry weight in many insects can exceed that of beef.

In fact birdseed can become a sort of "trap", (much like milkweed being available at the wrong times of year for monarchs) where it tricks their biology into thinking it's a food rich area that's good for breeding, but what they need actually isn't there resulting in high mortality rate of the young they were trying to raise.

So having a bunch of garden plants getting shredded by native caterpillars is a good thing, one way or another.

this is great and all, but aren't you concerned that over-protecting them for generations will only lead to their increased vulnerability someday when you're not around?

i think adding the plant-based environment for them to thrive is the appropriate level of action, but not the human-level protection across larval stages, that's something they'll need to do for themselves in the wild or they're only going to be doomed

The issue is that it's a numbers game right now, and it's tilted poorly in their favor. Yes, butterflies have to deal with natural predators, but their low numbers amplify their susceptibility to predators. If we can restore their numbers, then the percentage eaten isn't such a big deal anymore.

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