18th/Main Pollinator Garden CBus

06/04/2026

06/02/2026

We have a bumper crop of Milkw**d 🤩

If milkw**d is growing in the yard — planted or wild — the monarch eggs may already be on it.

Flip a leaf over gently. The underside of upper leaves and new growth is where females usually lay. One egg per leaf, firmly attached. A tiny off-white oval, about the size of a pinhead, with vertical ridges visible under magnification.

🌿 What it's not:

- Yellow dots with black legs clustered together = oleander aphids. Common on milkw**d. Not eggs.
- Bright white round droplets along the veins = milkw**d sap. Not eggs.
- Monarch eggs are solitary, oval, ridged, and off-white.

The female found the milkw**d from the air, landed on it, confirmed it with taste receptors on her feet, and placed one egg on one leaf.

🐾 If you find one:

- Leave it in place — hatching takes a few days
- The caterpillar eats its own eggshell first, then starts on the leaf
- Don't spray, trim, or relocate the plant while eggs or caterpillars are present

The milkw**d is the only plant monarch caterpillars can eat. The egg on the underside is proof the relay found your yard 🌿

**d

06/01/2026

The flat rosette with parallel ribs in the lawn is broadleaf plantain. You've stepped on it a thousand times. It grows where soil is compacted — paths, lawn edges, driveway cracks — and thrives where grass fails.

The parallel veins running from base to tip are the diagnostic. No other common lawn plant has that pattern.

🌿 What it does in the yard:

- The thin flower spikes produce seeds that finches and sparrows forage on through summer and winter
- The flowers produce pollen used by native bees
- The leaves are a food source for butterfly larvae
- The roots break up compacted soil — she improves every site she colonizes

Plantain has followed humans across continents for thousands of years, appearing wherever foot traffic compacts the ground. Foragers have traditionally used the crushed leaves on minor skin irritations — though the plant earns its place in the yard through the wildlife value alone.

The w**d you've been pulling is feeding the finches, the bees, and the soil underneath it 🌿