poof!

We have a few milkweed plants growing in one of our gardens. They just showed up one year - there is a wetland nearby so this was hardly surprising. This is just fine because we had many monarch butterflies fluttering about our yard this summer, and about a month ago a hoard of milkweed tussock moth caterpillars made short work of the leaves.

Then we promptly forgot about the milkweed.

Today as I was monitoring my cat's garden wanderings I re-noticed the milkweed. And saw the seedpods had opened.

As much as I like the few milkweed we have and the monarchs they bring, I really don't want elebenty million of them in my garden. So I spent the next half hour plucking downy milkweed fluff out of my sorely neglected iris and daylilies. I realize it was a mostly futile project since several of the seeds had already fallen from the fluff, but I think I got most of the seeded fluff. Not to mention the rest of the unopened seedpods.

As I was fluff plucking, I took some time to see how amazing milkweed seedpods are. The fluff is packed in the pods so tightly and perfectly.

As the pod slowly opens, the weight of the seeds pull the fluff out of the pod. When the wind grabs the fluff, out comes all the fluff like tissues out of a tissue box! It's genius!

The fluff is so soft it almost feels like silk. I wonder if you can make thread out of milkweed fluff?