Weeds Have Rights Too !

[ScottBakula]

We , the weed collective have decided that its time to stand up for our weedy rights !
In particular at this time of the year all of our brethren are mercilessly up rooted and poisoned for no reason other than someone has decided that we are inferior to the flowers that humans like.

We bring nature back to derelict area's like neglected road side verges , abandoned gardens, cracks in paving stones , gaps in gutters and the brave ones even go up on to rooftops and live in the chimney stacks and gutters.

Nature isn't meant to be regimented with flowers in neat rows and groups so we come along and add a bit of normal back to your garden and what do you do ? You poison or up-root us . Which also can cause problems to your beloved plants.

We understand that you want things to look pretty, but please leave us a bit of space too.

We create just as much oxygen as your expensive roses and lilies , we feed bees , wasps and butterflies along with lots of other bugs.

We are just flowers that humans have decided they don't want , and that makes us sad.
Please help the weed collective by leaving us a little bit of your land and we promise that we will help to look after your environment.

( just incase nobody notices this is a bit tounge in cheek , but I do think that all plants help our environment and bees don't care if its a dandelion or prize rose that they get there pollen from)

Oh Wise Weed One, I could really use some hand holding ....it seems my raggedy milkweeds have attracted an inexperienced female Monarch Butterfly mummy who has decided to lay her eggs on them. The caterpillars need tonnes of leaves so they can grow large enough to get to their chrysalis stage. Unfortunately, their numpty mummy has laid them on 2 milkweeds with about 15 leaves between them.Tomorrow I will have to go scout out some plants myself with leaves for them since the western monarch is on the 'Threatened to become endangered ' list.
The eggs are the tiny white dots and there are at least 25 of them in all plus one hungry caterpillar already chomping away.😩 If you zoom in, you can see him.

On a cheerier note, I found this tall silver weed with little purple flowers in my back garden.

@Sweetpea1532 Loving your dedication to butterfly caterpillars!
👊

I don’t feel so bad now, that my garden is just a mass of different weeds

Most of my caterpillars have dried up in the sun and died. I am so sad. I saw them yesterday when I was in the garden, they're still on the ragwort but sadly not moving. I didn't even think of how the heat would affect them, poor things. I have moved my umbrella/parasol to shade some of the ragwort and have started to water it a few times a day, but I don't know if that'll help the few that are still alive.

Aww poor things @RumNotRun , hopefully the last few will live.
I must admit it wouldn't of occurred to me either.
@Sweetpea1532 how are your caterpillars doing ?

Thank you for asking after my monarchs @ScottBakula and @MagpiePi. After driving halfway around the Western US, I was able to find several native milkweed plants...some came with their own eggs attached and one even had its own caterpillar.I wasn't needing any more eggs nor caterpillars, so I bought a couple extra plants so I'll have enough weed leaves, just in case. It cost a fortune $16 a plant! No wonder they are on the 'list'!
The MW does throw out seeds, but the squirrels and gophers love the plants. Last year I was so happy to see a volunteer growing in my garden..it got to be about a foot tall. I lovingly watered it every day until I went out to do so, and it was nowhere to be found. A gopher had pulled it straight through the soil into his tunnel! So cheeky them.

Your dedication is admiral @Sweetpea1532 !
I knew gophers could do damage but that's impressive, the only thing in the UK that damages roots in a similar way is moles but they don't go round stealing whole plants .

Thank you @ScottBakula
You are very fortunate to only have moles. We also have ground squirrels that do a lot of damage to the ground, too, with their tunnels and appetite. Ive lost hundreds and hundreds of dollars in plants to them. They once ate a 4 inch diameter hole straight through a palm tree..it looked like someone had fired a cannon at it.
Thank goodness they don't like to eat my beautiful weeds.

Fantastic news!!! My caterpillars aren't dead! I went outside earlier and noticed one of the solitary ragworts was stripped bare, so I had a closer look on all of them and (apart from the very small caterpillars who sadly have died) all of them are still munching away and living. They must have gone into a kind of shutdown mode when they were dehydrated, but they're now back alive. I have moved a few of them from the bare ragworts onto the massive ragwort patch so that they have plenty to eat. It's meant to rain tonight so hopefully then the caterpillars will feel back on top form.

I have never been so invested in the lives of tiny creature before! 😁

Shutdown mode was definitely a good idea for the last couple of days.

you should be rewarded with lots of snazzy moths in due course. I saw some good 6 spot burnets last week

@RumNotRun , umm zombie caterpillars? I'm not sure that's a good thing.

It's great to see they have made it through the dry spell , it's rained here in the North West ( England) a bit so most bugs should be coming back to life now hopefully. 😁

@ErrolTheDragon that's some very bright spots he is sporting!

@ErrolTheDragon That's a very smart moth, quite similar to the Cinnabar moths I am hoping will appear in my garden.

@ScottBakula Oh, I hadn't thought of them as zombie caterpillars! I wonder if I can get them to stick around till Halloween if I keep feeding them ragwort?

It's raining here this morning, I am so pleased that all the plants and creatures will get a good drink at last.

Glad your caterpillars are enjoying your ragwort @RumNotRun .Its amazing how fast they can strip the leaves.
Well, Im in Montana again and my DD and I have been hiding the lawn mower so DH can't cut the grass...there are so many beautiful weeds in it and the bees, birds and other animals are enjoying tromping around in it. Every day there are new colourful weeds. I found these today.

I don't know what I was thinking when I said the gophers dont like milkweed...Id forgotten that they pulled my plant straight through the dirt to their tunnel last year!
Right before we left for our trip to Montana, 3 caterpillars went into their chrysalis form. They are so unusual looking..bright green with shiny gold dots like a gold chain. They will probably hatch before I get home so I had to configure a way for them to fly freely. I cut out the fabric where they had attached and hot glued them to a plastic lid. (They dont stay on the plant when it is time to become a chrysalis...they crawl away to the weirdest spots to attach!)
@RumNotRun I wonder what your caterpillars chrysalis will look like?

@Sweetpea1532 apparently my caterpillars bury themselves in the ground then become chrysalis, so I probably won't see them. They also stay in that form for a very long time, August to May according to Google!

Nearly all of my ragwort is bare now so they better hurry up and bury themselves or they'll have no food. The caterpillars are all looking very fat though so hopefully lots will survive the next stage!

Thanks for that tidbit of knowledge @RumNotRun I had no idea that there is a caterpillar that buries itself in the ground til May. Yes, they'd better hurry or else you could be finding yourself on social media begging for people who have extra ragwort to donate some to your new pets like the people round here who are on 'Nextdoor' begging for Milkweed cause their caterpillars have stripped the leaves off theirs. 🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛

Does anyone remember the OP during Covid who decided to hog her own thread and tried to take up every posts by posting rows and row of green items on her thread? I was one of the nuts who tried to sneak in a posts occasionally. Maybe she was the cause of MN kicking posters off for awhile if they are prolific posters 😂

How's everybody's weeds doing ?

It's cooled down here now and we have had bits of rain over the past week or so , so some are looking a bit more vigorous round here.

@RumNotRun , I had no idea that caterpillars went into statuses for so long , but it's mind boggling the changes they go through to become a butterfly so I recon they deserve a rest as they change

Err @Sweetpea1532 are you sure it would be a good idea to post on your local FB page asking for various types of weeds , the police may come knocking on your door 😃
Those chrysalis look like green acorns !
I remember that thread , i think i was on it too , they posted loads of pictures of Christmas trees , clover , caterpillars, other trees and lord knows what else .
Madness, but funny.

Hahahalol! @ScottBakula I once tried to grow some 'weed' down in my parent's basement...the grow operation was coming along great until my DF found it when he was giving a house tour to a prospective buyer of the house...he destroyed all the plants and about 'killed' me for being so dumb...I didnt even partake of 'weed' ..I just wanted to see if I could grow it....ever since then, Ive never been successful at growing anything from seed 😂 sorry, Dad!

I haven't checked on the ragwort and caterpillars for a few days. I'm a bit apprehensive cause apparently if they run out of ragwort, cinnabar caterpillars will turn to cannibalism! The weather here has been very changeable with lots of rain but also lots of sun so hopefully the ragwort has regenerated!

Oh gosh I had no idea that this little corner of mumsnet existed. And a thread on WILD NATIVE PLANTS!! Not weeds, I'll pretend I didn't see that (and not get huffy either 😁), cos native plants are what makes our environment and they are great. I'll have to take some nice pictures of my mulleins next time I get chance, I love them. And Willowherbs.

One quick word of warning on Fox and Cubs if anyone can remember that long ago, yep they're very pretty. So I thought too when one appeared and started planting them out. I can't get rid of them now and they take over. They're another one that spreads through bloody runners, and it seems they only need a tiny piece left otherwise keep growing. I'd leave them in the wild.

Cinnabar cats also eat groundsel if you can helicopter any in (as I've been known to do in the past when they've eaten everything else and looked hungry 😄)

Hi @WaryCrow lovely that you've found us! This forum has only been here a short while but it seems to be going well, and fulfilling exactly what we had hoped for 😃

@RumNotRun ok now I am getting worried, you have zombie and cannibal caterpillars!

@WaryCrow my deepest apologies for mis-naming our plant life 🫢.

If the bees like it, it’s not a weed. I hate to get rid of any plant with flowers. To the pollinators, a flower’s a flower (and much needed).