Loving a weed

My love affair with milkweed began late: just last summer, to be specific. I had always sort of known about milkweed, the way that I know about cattails and dandelions and even the leaves of the mighty oak trees. But I haven't been much of a gardener in my life, so I didn't really know about milkweed until last summer.

We were getting some landscaping work done in our backyard. The peonies were all overgrown and had to go. I wanted something that would bloom more often than just that one glorious week in June, too. So we got some advice, and planted a few things, and tried to nurse a couple of other sad plants back to health. While the landscaper was over one afternoon giving us some advice, he looked over at the fence line between our house and our neighbor's, and said, "Oh! You have milkweed."

I do? I thought, but did not say. (How could I not have noticed?) I took a good look, and tried not to look too excited. I had heard that milkweed was good for butterflies, particularly the monarch butterfly. And here it was, just growing in our yard, for free.