Commonly known as milkweed, Asclepias is a genus of herbaceous, perennial plants in the Apocynaceae (dogbane) plant family. Named for Asclepius, the Greek god of healing, plants exude a sticky, milky ...

Grow milkweed (Asclepias) to support monarch butterflies, hummingbirds, and bees while adding color, fragrance, and beauty to your landscape. You’ll find native milkweeds throughout North and South ...

Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) is a perennial plant that serves as a vital host for monarch butterflies, offering food and shelter for monarch caterpillars. This fast-growing native plant can ...

The native plant I am most excited about in my "unlawned" front yard this spring won’t be showing up in beauty pictures anytime soon. But one morning this week, I was elated to discover that the ...

Tom Oder is a writer, editor, and communication expert who specializes in sustainability and the environment with a sweet spot for urban agriculture. Want to do your part to help reverse the dramatic ...

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 ...

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

When you’re out flower shopping this season, don’t forget to add a member or two – more is better -- of the asclepias family, better known as milkweed, to your shopping list. Unlike the many beautiful ...

Do you like to attract butterflies to your garden? There are a couple of ways to do this, with the best being to plant the host plants on which they lay their eggs. Another is to provide plenty of ...

Two summers ago, I spoke with a man at a store parking lot in Logan Township, just off I-99. He had just harvested about 100 bright orange-flowered butterfly plants, asclepias tuberosa, from the grass ...