If you’re looking for a good book to spark your enthusiasm for adding milkweed to your garden this spring, check out The Milkweed Lands by Eric Lee-Mader. Lavishly illustrated by Beverly Duncan, this book covers the natural history of the milkweed genus Asclepias and its many ecological relationships with organisms from aphids to monarch butterflies to human beings.
We humans have damaged milkweed populations. Ever more potent herbicides and habitat loss have taken a heavy toll, with the result, as Lee-Mader states, that they are now displaced citizens in their lands. We can easily help by planting them in our own yards and public spaces and not spraying—and helping milkweeds helps monarch butterflies. F
or more information about planting milkweeds, google Monarch Joint Venture.