Your Say: April 4-10, 2019
Praise for Wayne Bierbaum’s Creature Feature
I especially enjoy Wayne Bierbaum’s photos and column on nature. If he retires from medicine, he’d make a fine full-time teacher or writer or photographer — or all the above.
Get Your Milkweed Seeds
I grow common milkweed and this past fall harvested seeds, which I can share. We had a nice crop last summer; many butterflies visited. We had four different caterpillars, and my one-and-one-half-year-old grandson found our first monarch butterfly chrysalis in the fall.
I harvested three pods, getting about 21 envelopes of a dozen seeds from each one.
Common milkweed is large and so coarse-leafed that you can hear the caterpillars chew their way through it.
I do enjoy the terrific Bay Weekly newspaper.
Thank you for your continued encouragement.
Editor’s note: Seeds have been delivered to Bay Weekly. For your packet, drop by or send us a stamped, self-addressed envelope.
You can sow your seeds now. They’ll grow four to six feet tall and spread by rhizomes as well as seeds, so it’s best to give them some independence. They like full sun to part shade and make balls of pink blossoms in early summer. Unless you’re saving seeds, cut them back in fall when they lose their looks. Learn more at https://monarchbutterflygarden.net/milkweed-plant-seed-resources/asclepias-syriaca.