Two FINAL Milkweed Ideas

One eastern native, One fast-growing annual, Last-minute Mother's Day gift?

May 10, 2025

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Happy Mother’s Day Weekend to you and yours,

it’s hot in Minnesota…like SUMMER hot 🥵 This isn’t typical weather for early-May, as temps flirt with 90°F.

The annual spring plant sale we go to every Friday before Mother’s Day was out of control, and I’ve never seen so many people get there early for wrist bands. Rumor has it, the first people started lining up at 1230am for a sale that started at 9am…🤯

We arrived at a (slightly) more-reasonable 530am and got every pollinator plant on our 2025 wish list. I hope your search for spring plants has also been fruitful.

Garden Report

The 🦌 and the 🐇 are both…GONE 🥳

The neighbors have (thankfully) stopped feeding the deer, but the winter damage has been done. Our lilac bushes (3 of them) and magnolia tree were all eaten down and will have zero spring blooms…thankfully they left the more mature lilacs by the water feature and those look like they will bloom prolifically in the next couple weeks. 🤞

Something chased the rabbits from our yard (fox? cat? definitely not Miss Lucy 🐕 ) and we reetablished the fence perimeter before they returned, so zero garden plants are currently being munched on by large animals. 😊

After a horrible year with liatris in 2024, the returning plants (both old and fall-planted) look fantastic and are growing quickly without daily chompings.

We continue to see early tiger swallowtails, new birds including orioles, hummingbirds, and our resident leopard frog. Still no monarchs…

Perennial milkweed is popping up (but still needs a little grow time before hosting caterpillars) I’m picking up a few tropical milkweed plants that will be planted early next week, but the returning butterflies typically prefer the baby-fresh perennials in spring.

I have no doubt, there will be MANY garden updates report in this section next week.

Before we get to your FINALE of Milkweed madness a word from this newsletter’s sponsor…

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🌿 Milkweed MADNESS Finale 🤔

For our two final milkweed ideas for the 2025 season this is:

  1. Reliable Eastern Native

Asclepias exaltata (poke milkweed) is a caterpillar host plant with weepy blooms. I’ve never seen many pollinators on it, BUT we are trying it in a more sunny location this season. Even though this plant is reported to be thrive in shadier conditions, the most thriving poke plant I’ve ever seen was in…full sun 🌞 (This is why we always experiment with microclimates in our garden and suggest you do the same…where will a plant thrive best in your exact growing conditions?)

We have a few poke plants coming up in our 2025 garden and will report on them throughout the season…

  1. Fast Growing, Big Leaf Annual

Calotropis gigantea (giant milkweed) is perennial to USDA hardiness zone 10 and a fast growing annual, even for northern regions. In our Minnesota garden, we purchased/planted a rooted cutting and had a mature, flowering plant the same season.

The flowers are big, beautiful and used to make Hawaiian leis. We were going to choose this for our annual milkweed in 2025, but we opted for tropical again which is always a monarch favorite as both host and nectar plant.

Monarchs used our giant milkweed as a host plant, but we never saw evidence they were using it as a nectar source. The leaves are large and thick for very hungry caterpillars…C. gigantea is a showstopper and conversation piece to teach people about the the surprisingly wide world of milkweed!

Calotropis Gigantea Info and Photos ⬅️ (the last photo in this linked post shows our potted giant milkweed from a few years back)

Last Minute Mother’s Day Gift Ideas for GARDENERS❓🤔

Mother’s day is fast approaching and here are two garden gift ideas to make her heart flutter with joy:

1. LOCAL Plant Sales or Nurseries- In Minnesota, our favorite annual plant sale is mother’s day weekend and there are many spring plant sales across the US and Canada. Search Mother Google to find your local plant sales and nurseries.

If you’re in Minnesota, check out this post to find:

  1. Gift Certificate to Buy plants Online

When you can’t find what you want want locally, my suggestion would be to get mom a gift certificate from a marketplace where she can find almost any plant her heart desires:

Etsy Gift Certificate (let mom choose from hard to find garden plants to an endless supply of arts and crafts)

Garden Resources

Here are two hard to find plants I recently purchased from etsy as an example of what mom could buy with her gift certificate:

Conoclinium Greggii (Gregg’s Mist Flower) ⬅️ (Monarch FAVORITE! GALLON plant size…not starters!)

Ageratum Houstonianum (Tall ‘Blue Horizon’ Mistflower) ⬅️ (I’ve never seen this variety offered locally and it’s also not easy to find online.)


Coming Up Next?

Growing Great Milkweed…in containers❗️🪴🪴

Blue Skies and Butterflies,

Tony your Butterfly Guide 🦋