With each passing year, more Georgia gardeners are planting milkweeds in hopes their efforts will bolster the dwindling monarch butterfly population.  The University of Georgia’s Cooperative Extension Program recommends we do not plant the common milkweed in our gardens (Asclepias syriaca) in the state.

       This reason they want us to defer from planting this particular milkweed is it is not native to Georgia.  This recommendation is based on the fear that this milkweed could potentially become invasive and usurp habitats currently occupied by Georgia’s native milkweeds and other wild plants.