Q: My milkweed has orange bugs on its seed pods. Are they harmful? No, they’re not going to damage the plant enough to warrant intervention. These are native insects, and they are part of the ...

Common milkweed provides nectar for butterflies, and is the only food source for monarch caterpillars, but is too aggressive ...

All of us were taught in our elementary school science class about monarch butterflies and their caterpillar stage that only eats milkweed leaves. Other insects also eat milkweeds, but they are hardly ...

Also known as oleander aphids, milkweed aphids are not native to North America; they originated in the Mediterranean region. In their native land, these aphids primarily fed on oleander plants, but in ...

Growing milkweed from seed is one of the easiest ways to help declining monarch butterflies. In December 2024, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed monarch butterflies, whose numbers in the ...

Q: My milkweed seed pods have clusters of bugs on them that are orange and black. What are they, and what should I do about them? Write to the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Center for Home Gardening at ...

Milkweed is a fantastic plant for pollinators, and one particularly adored by Monarch butterflies. But the Monarchs' population is declining, and gardeners need to stand up and do whatever they can to ...