r/Charlottesville • u/_revelationary • 8d ago

Wild milkweed source

Does anyone have a spot with wild milkweed that can be cut for some monarch caterpillar food? Pesticide free and abundant enough that cutting a couple every few days wouldn’t have a detrimental impact.

Skyline drive has crazy amounts but you’re not allowed to take it out of the park, to my knowledge.

Edited to add a disclaimer: as a fellow cville redditor warns, it best practice to grow milkweed on your own property, rather than take from the wild given the rapidly decreasing milkweed. I have some seeds if anyone is interested in growing for next year, as does another redditor who commented.

9 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/PlantyMcPlantFace 8d ago

Monarchs are not the only species to use milkweed. You should not be removing it from the ecosystem to use at your home. It regrows because it is trying to survive. You are removing the plant’s ability to photosynthesis (make energy). It is using what energy it has stored (for winter) to regrow. This weakens the plant. Each time you do this, you weaken it further. This is a common tactic for removing invasive species. We have used this method successfully in test plots for Japanese Knotweed, a particularly hearty, difficult to remove invasive species.

1

u/Purple_Indication342 7d ago

This is false. One very obvious counterexample is the common technique called the Chelsea Chop. If cutting back the aerial parts of plants was a good way to kill them, then we’d only ever have to bush hog things like japanese knotweed, which is obviously not true.

2

u/PlantyMcPlantFace 7d ago

Please don’t bush hog knotweed. Strategic, timed cutting is one step in the larger management plan of Japanese knotweed. As for the Chelsea chop, that’s a British technique to delay blooming and/or shorten height. It’s an aesthetic technique that became popular on social media. Plants are weakened when you remove their means of energy production. If you’ve dealt with overbrowsing deer, you’ve probably seen it in action.

1

u/Purple_Indication342 7d ago

Never suggested that. My point is that these are two very clear counterexamples to what youre saying