Posted: Oct 06, 2015 3:44 pm
ScholasticSpastic wrote:The_Piper wrote:I don't need to plant them, they grow naturally. I leave a big patch unmowed, it's one of my best insect viewing areas.
I get monarchs and viceroys among the hoard of six-leggers.
I don't even understand why people consider them a weed. Beautiful flowers in the summer, fascinating pods in the fall, plus they're usually crawling with milkweed beetles and lovely caterpillars and they attract some of the most striking North American butterfly species. I can't see why they couldn't be worked into a formal landscape with some ornamental onions and some nice foliage plants.
But, no, we need our yards to be lawns. Because reasons. Probably chiefest among those reasons being a spectacular failure of the imagination.
Yeah a pure grass lawn is boring. One with trees and bushes and flowers, etc, even if unkempt, is just way more interesting. I like to let more trees and bushes grow where it was lawn when I moved in. I've transplanted lots of native trees too. ( I have 4 acres, about 1.5-2 were lawn when I bought it)
That milkweed definitely attracts lots of really neat beetles. Which in turn those insects probably attract the little birds which are also fun to look at in the yard. I agree, it's not ugly, it's quite cool, with those pods and fat leaves.
Adjacent to the milkweed I let a large front yard grow all summer into a mass of wild flowers and "weeds". I mow a narrow trail through it if it hasn't grown in too much, which I call the butterfly trail.