The first time I noticed these critters I was a bit horrified. There were so many of them and while they were only on my butterfly weed (asclepius tuberosa), what if they migrated to the vegetable garden and started to chow down on it?
I’m learning to ask questions first and squish (or not) later, though, so I looked them up: Milkweed Bugs. And they only eat milkweed. Whew.
Now I let them munch and they have never trespassed into the “real” garden. They don’t seem to do much harm to the butterfly weed, either, concentrating on the seed pods. They leave the leaves for the monarch butterfly caterpillars, the blooms for the butterflies and the bees, and all is well.
Click here for more milkweed bug reading.
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