The Story of the Milkweed

This is a recent picture of a healthy milkweed plant. Many gardeners in the Ames Community Garden allow milkweed to grow in their plots because it's a very special plant. It's the only plant that monarch butterflies will lay their eggs on! To learn more, check out the book Monarch and Milkweed from the library.

 

 

 

We had a milkweed plant in the Library's section of the garden, too, and we were pretty excited about it. Unfortunately, part of the reality of gardening is that we share the area with animals (not just butterflies), and some animals are not garden-friendly. See how cracked the dirt is in this photo? That's because a mole tunneled under it. They like to eat the grubs in the ground. The tunneling only killed one of our plants--check the next photo to see which one.

See the brown leaves? That is the remains of our milkweed plant. No butterfly eggs for us this year! Oh well, that's how the garden grows!