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 ...

Oliver Hernandez, of Overland, Kansas, poses with a common milkweed plant in his front yard in 2020. A tiny, young monarch caterpillar and even tinier monarch eggs are visible on the underside of a ...

Tropical milkweed was added to Florida's invasive species list in June 2025. This non-native plant hosts a parasite that harms monarch and queen butterflies. Florida has 21 native milkweed species ...

In 2020, around Thanksgiving, a total of fewer than 2,000 monarch butterflies were counted at around 250 overwintering sites where they have traditionally been counted in the state of California. A ...

Tropical Milkweed is a popular ornamental plant featuring bright orange and yellow flowers. It is often planted in yards to attract the iconic monarch butterfly, which lays its eggs on the milkweed as ...

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 ...

Conservationists and horticulturalists are encouraging gardeners to plant native milkweed species to support declining monarch butterfly populations. While milkweed is the only host plant for monarch ...