A Quick And Easy Way To Separate Milkweed Seeds From The Silk

If you are wanting to help the monarch butterfly by planting milkweed in your own backyard but, like many of us, you’re a bit hesitant because of the resulting mess milkweed “silk” can cause, here is a simple method to easily separate the silk from the seeds in just a few minutes with nothing more than a couple of common household items.

Before we get started, however, it’s best to understand the silk attached to milkweed seeds does have an important but oftentimes greatly underappreciated purpose.

The attached silk is nature’s way of spreading milkweed seeds around the area by acting as a natural parachute, allowing the seeds to be carried off by wind or gentle breeze to settle and germinate in another location.

In fact, it doesn’t take much of a breeze at all to carry these lightweight seeds off into the neighbor’s yard or even further.

Once the milkweed seed pods ripen and burst, the silk and nothing more than just a slight breeze can carry the seeds hundreds of yards or so, helping proliferate the milkweed plant anywhere the seeds eventually fall to the earth whether they are wanted there or not.

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This type of proliferation is one of the reasons milkweed gets a bad reputation, but by placing a rubber band on the seed pods before they burst we can help reduce any unwanted spread of milkweed seeds throughout the neighborhood.

(An Easy Way To Separate Milkweed Seeds From The Silk.
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Even if you’ve harvested the milkweed seeds before they had a chance to burst, allowing them to spread all over the neighborhood, they are much easier to plant without the silk attached and it only takes a few minutes to detach the silk and get them ready for planting.

All you need is a couple of household items, including an empty grocery sack, a small plastic container with a snap-lid, a handful of change, and a small bag to pour the detached seeds into afterward.

For this example, we are using showy milkweed seeds recently harvested from my yard, a native milkweed plant commonly found in much of the western United States.

separating silk from milkweed seeds requires a few household items — (Separating milkweed seeds from their silk requires a few common household items, including an empty grocery sack, a small plastic container with a snap-on lid, a handful of spare change, and a small baggie to store the cleaned seeds in afterward.)

separating showy milkweed seeds from the silk — *(Step 1. Fill the plastic container about halfway full with milkweed seeds. Doing* this inside of a plastic sack *will help keep the mess to a minimum.)*

use spare change to help separate milkweed seeds from the silk — *(Step 2. Place the spare change in the plastic container with the milkweed seeds and tightly snap the lid on.)*

shake the container to help separate the milkweed seeds from the silk — *(Step 3. Gently shake the container, both upside down and right side up, for several minutes.)*

take out the left over milkweed silk — *(Step 4. Take out the leftover milkweed silk and place it in the empty grocery sack. Any still-attached seeds can be redone or taken off by hand if desired.)*

pour the milkweed seeds in the small plastic bag — *(Step 5. Finish by pouring the cleaned milkweed seeds into a small plastic bag.)*

a bag of cleaned milkweed seeds — *(Afterwards, what you will have is a nice, clean bag of milkweed seeds ready for planting without the mess from the silk.)*

It’s quite easy to take the silk off from milkweed seeds with a handful of spare change and a plastic container and lid.

Doing so not only makes it easier to plant but will keep the unwanted “spread” of milkweed seeds in the neighborhood to a minimum.

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