Who decides these green things are plants to be cultivated and those are weeds to be eradicated? Weed is part of the name of milkweeds, but the perennials that grow up to six feet tall with broad, egg-shaped leaves, fragrant pink flowers, green pods and milky, white sap are proven lifesavers. They are poisonous to pets and livestock but most animals won’t eat them because they have a sour taste.
During World War II, the federal government asked my dad and other farmers like him to delay mowing the interlopers growing in corners of their fields until us kids fought our way through the head-high patches and gathered the pods in September. A pound-and-a-half of the floss from the pods could be sewed inside a life preserver, which would keep a 150-pound sailor afloat for ten hours.
Today, people are encouraged to plant milkweeds to prevent the extinction of monarch butterflies. According to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service statistics, nearly a billion monarchs have vanished since 1990. Herbicides used by farmers and homeowners to eliminate milkweeds are blamed. The greenery are the food source, home and nursery for the king of butterflies with their familiar four-inch, black, orange and white patterned wing-spans floating in slow, sailing flights. Monarch caterpillars feed exclusively on the leaves of milkweed, the only host plant for this iconic butterfly species.
Another perennial that many homeowners curse as weeds and dig out of their lawns is the dandelion. The hearty plant never gives up–it can be found growing in such inhospitable places as cracks in sidewalks. It withstands frost and provides one of the first pollen sources in the spring for bees and other pollinating insects.
The first bouquet of flowers a mother receives from her child is often a bunch of dandelions.
Some people consider the plant a food and eat the greens as part of a salad or cooked like spinach. My dad talked about folks of his era making wine from the blossoms.
How do you see milkweeds and dandelions?
I too remember being told the value of the milkweed pod from my younger days on the farm. I don’t remember that we actually picked & sold them, however, I do remember that Canadian & Bull Thistles were disliked weeds on the farm. How is a plant declared a weed, well it probably was designated as such by some horticulturalist or botanist years ago. That would be it’s official designation, but I consider something a weed if it looks unsightly, or spreads too quickly into places I want other things to grow i.e. flowers. I have always had a low opinion of dandelions because they took over grassy areas I was trying to cultivate.
We have recently had No Mow May here in Madison & Tamarack, & I have opposed the cultivation of dandelions & creeping charlie because they are unsightly. I prefer planting flowers that attract our insect friends.