Butterfly fans, take a breath. I
know it’s officially spring and we’re all pounding on nursery doors, anxious to plant some California native milkweed to help the endangered Western monarch butterfly stay afloat since,
yes, milkweed is the only thing its caterpillars will eat and nonnative varieties appear to be hastening its demise.
But here’s the thing: native milkweeds are still slowly coming back to life.
Native milkweeds especially narrow-leaf milkweed, the most prominent variety in California are just now emerging from dormancy, a normal, natural thing that won’t be hurried no matter how we plead, said Patty Roess, manager of the retail portion of the Tree of Life Nursery in San Juan Capistrano, one of Southern California’s premier growers of native plants. “We’ve tried growing native milkweed in different conditions and it’s the same. You can’t change what the plant wants to be: a summer bloomer that goes dormant in midwinter.”