This slow-growing plant group goes dormant, retreating underground every winter and in hot, dry summers — and sometimes even when conditions are perfect.
A lot has been said about the difficulty of cultivating native Texas milkweed. I’m not going to dispel the myth outright, but I do argue that it’s not hard to propagate — but it can fool unsuspecting gardeners.
This slow-growing group of plants goes dormant and retreats underground every winter. It pulls the same disappearing act during particularly hot and dry summers. And just to keep things interesting, milkweed also seems to go dormant when conditions are perfect.
In nursery conditions, with rich potting mix and precise irrigation, milkweed sometimes appears sickly or like a pot of bare soil. However, the seeds tend to sprout very easily. Ever wonder why they’re called milkweed? “Milk” because the milky latex sap and “weed” because they pop up where they aren’t wanted.
Producing thousands of fertile seeds, plants in this group are a common resident in ranges, roadsides and anywhere their airborne seeds land. Unpalatable to most four-legged grazers, ranchers have long considered it a pest.
As a casual native plant propagation hobbyist, I can tell you that milkweed seeds typically sprout very easily, but don’t worry if wild seed collection and propagation is not a side quest you want to take on. Luckily, many of our native milkweed species are becoming easier to find (with a targeted search) in nurseries. Native nurseries are a great place to start. A few milkweed species that come to mind are butterfly weed, antelope horns, Texas milkweed and zizotes. They’re tough and require very little water (except butterfly weed (A. tuberosa), which needs a moderate amount).
What exactly is a milkweed?
Milkweed is in the Dogbane plant group aka Apocynaceae. Though there are about 350 genera in this family, Asclepias is the genus commonly known as milkweed. Funastrum, Cynanchum and Matelea are other notable genera in this group and can be found in central Texas. They’re typically not good forage for deer or cattle which is probably why it earned the name milkweed.
Sitting staunchly at the hub of our unique Central Texas food web, milkweed persists through the worst Texas has to offer. It’s a long-lived perennial with the ability to multiply prolifically in harsh conditions. The trait that makes it unpalatable forage for livestock and wildlife is what makes it attractive to a certain few. It’s well known that monarch’s lay their eggs on milkweed and the caterpillars that follow will feed exclusively on the plant.
Milkweed is so named because it contains a toxic milky sap. This monarch retains the toxins throughout the metamorphosis process and the adult butterfly emerges with quite the defense mechanism. If an unwitting young bird attempts to eat the monarch butterfly (or caterpillar) it will quickly learn to avoid anything that looks like that again. The soldier and queen butterflies also utilize this strategy. They’re lesser known because they don’t have the unusual migratory life cycle as the monarch. Additionally, there are butterflies that simply mimic the general vibe of the monarch, queen and soldier and benefit from being avoided by predators.
Most are familiar with the milkweed-monarch relationship, but its many benefits are not limited to the ones using it as a host plant. This broad plant group is attractive to a wide variety of pollinators and their predators.
Native bees, butterflies and beetles also feast on the flower’s nectar and pollen. Aphids feast on the milky sap, ants often feed on the aphids’ “honeydew.” In fact aphids are so common that if I’m trying to identify milkweed in the wild I will look for aphids as a clue that it’s a milkweed.
