Mexican Milkweed. Mexican milkweed also attracts another beautiful bonus for the avid naturalist cool herbivorous lygaeid milkweed bugs. You ll soon see it attracting ladybugs who will lay their eggs on it too green lacewings syrphid flies hover flies and parasitic wasps.
Blood flower butterfly weed scarlet milkweed tropical milkweed swallow wort red cottonweed indian root or silkweed if you have a mexican milkweed growing around your home and somewhat fluently understand butterfly and what self respecting gardener doesn t you have probably heard visiting monarch s. Apocynaceae also known as. I my personal experience tropical also known as mexican milkweed is not fast food milkweed whatever that means it is the first choice of the female monarchs of all my milkweeds.
In fact consider it a nursery for rearing beneficial insects.
These orange and black insects have piercing sucking mouthparts and feed on the milkweed seeds and other plant tissues. This tropical herbaceous perennial evergreen in milder areas is hardy to zone 8 but can be grown as an annual in colder areas. Blood flower butterfly weed scarlet milkweed tropical milkweed swallow wort red cottonweed indian root or silkweed if you have a mexican milkweed growing around your home and somewhat fluently understand butterfly and what self respecting gardener doesn t you have probably heard visiting monarch s. You ll soon see it attracting ladybugs who will lay their eggs on it too green lacewings syrphid flies hover flies and parasitic wasps.
