Most people plant or encourage milkweed since it is the host plant for the monarch butterfly, but it is used by far more critters than monarchs. Quick video that discusses a few of them.

Hope you enjoy it!

Anthony

Was out looking at plants yesterday and it looks like milkweeds seed pods are good to go. Some are already splitting but many are still closed or mostly closed. Common, swamp and butterfly milkweed all had good full pods on them.

Another great video


Mac

I collected some pod out of the road ditch just south of the house. I was thinking about planting milkweed, but after reading it is poison to about everything, I am not sure I want a bunch more around.

It's the best wind checker you can get if your a hunter. Slit the pod and put it in a breathable paper bag to dry. Once dry separate the fluff from the seed. Seeds in garbage, put fluff in and type of small holder for your pocket. I use plastic beef jerkey tins with a hole drilled on the top. Just pull it out of the hole like kleenex. Let it go and watch it fly away.

MJM - Milkweed is toxic to some critters but so are dozens of plants that grow natively. Things just don't eat them - unless they have no other choice. The toxins are the reason so many insects eat it - so they can use the plant toxins as a defense mechanism.

Flicker Shad - the seed fluff is the best wind checker out there - and its free!

There are lots of different kinds of milkweeds out there. I have 6 in my place alone, Common, Whorled, Purple, Swamp, Poke, and Butterfly.
In WI there are over a dozen.

Most only know the common milkweed.

Keep up the good work Anthony, your stuff is very educational.

I have a few other tidbits about milkweed.

The fiber makes great string

The young pods are edible and actually quite tasty.

Anyone here make flint and steel fire? The papery structure in the middle of the pods that the fluff attaches to will catch a spark and make a coal with flint and steel. No charring, no treatment of any kind just dry them and hit them with a spark.

Dirty D - You have some great species there! We have purple in KY but it is rare. Mostly all I ever see is common, butterfly and swamp. There is some green milkweed in places. We also have aquatic milkweed in the far western part of the state. Around a dozen species native here also, but most are hard to find.

loosanarrow - The close relative of the milkweeds, Indian hemp or dogbane also makes very good cordage.

You make interesting videos.

Dogbane makes what I think is the strongest string of any plant I know of. Stronger than hemp, and more durable according to early accounts. Stronger than Indian hemp tends to grow in clumps and is taller, spreading dogbane grows in patches and is shorter but the fiber is finer and stronger. Stronger than flax (linen) too. Also spreading dogbane fiber will last standing in the field at least a year, sometimes two years. That is important during spring or summer months when all of the other annual fibers have rotted. Regular milkweed fiber gets fairly weak around Christmas time so must be harvested in fall as soon as the plant dries up.
Swamp milkweed fiber is very soft and silky.

lososanarrow - Only dogbane in my area is the Indian Hemp, and there is tons of it. The metallic green dogbane beetles that feed on it are one of my favorite insects. I will have to keep an eye out for the spreading dogbane next time I am up in Indiana or Michigan.

About a year or so ago we had a great presentation at our state beekeepers conference from a speaker who detailed a Florida study of mowing regimes along road right of ways. He listed a long list of species that use our native milkweeds including honey bees. They found that by leaving the ROW unmowed during the bloom it reduced car strike mortality across the board for pollinators and contributed to providing linear travel ways between habitat. But it wasn't about not mowing but scheduling a best practice rotation.

During WW2 many Saskatchewan school children went out to collect the pods of the common milkweed. The silky threads were used in the " life preservers" of the military. The seat cushions were filled with them in the aircraft.

warrior they found the same in Manitoba that the 20 feet of undisturbed road way increase the pollination of the canola crops by 30% for 200 m into the crops

They've spotted that in the California almonds. Clean orchard floor vs one that's allowed to grow flowering forbs.

Delayed mowing is a great management tool for pollinators, and other critters benefit from it too.