Comment by lovich

11 hours ago

The site looks like it got hugged to death.

I’m on the monarch migration path and had wild milkweeds with monarch butterflies for a few years but the last 2-3 years oleander aphids exploded in population and I’ve seen a single caterpillar since.

Are there ways to mitigate that while not killing the monarchs or am I just shit out of luck?

I release ladybugs every year and that seems to help. You can buy them online if they are hard to find locally.

  • The ones available online are from the western U.S.; depending on where you live, that may be counterproductive to the locally native species that are struggling.

  • Grow some yarrow, dill, or sunflowers and get ladybugs to lay their eggs all over your garden naturally, and I imagine you'll start to see much better results! Larval stage ladybugs are significantly more ravenous than their adult forms.