Photo by Chris Bosak
Milkweed flowers bud in a meadow in Stamford, July 2015.
Here’s my latest For the Birds column, which runs weekly in The Hour (Norwalk, CT) and The Keene Sentinel in New Hampshire.
Why do so many people consider milkweed a useless weed?
Perhaps because it is so prevalent (or at least used to be). Perhaps because it grows in vacant parking lots and in cracks in sidewalks. Perhaps because that’s what we’ve been told and trained to think all these years. Or it could be because is has the word ‘weed’ right in its name.
Whatever the reason it’s time to change the way we think about milkweed. Here are some quick facts about the beautiful and valuable plant:
Birds of New England.com 
Used to have it growing behind our garage while I was growing up. The pods and their seeds always amused me.
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Hi Chris — I’ve just returned from two weeks at our family property in New Hampshire. We have quite a lot of milkweed there but no monarch sightings as yet.
I read that column in the Keene Sentinel & also the one on loons. When I’m up there I always buy the Monday Sentinel. I love to read your column on paper, & their other environmental stuff is good too. Best Susan
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Hi Susan. I hope you had a good time in New Hampshire. Glad to hear there is milkweed up there. Also glad you got to keep up with some of the happenings in the Keene area. The Sentinel is a good hometown paper. Thanks Susan. Talk to you soon.
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