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Butterfly Milkweed

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I noticed that my hybrid Butterfly Milkweed – Asclepias tuberosa – had started to form buds. I had noticed the developing buds about a week and a half ago as I took a walk in my garden checking on all the plants as I went.

Luckily I had my camera at hand and I was able to take a few nice photos of the developing buds:

Milkweed tuberosa buds

Butterfly weed is a herbaceous perennial that grows up to two feet in height. It dies back each winter and then re-sprouts in late spring from underground tubers.

Milkweed is slow to come up each spring. If you grow any form of milkweed you should always take care to mark the spot that it grows in each fall or at the very least try to remember where it was as it’s slow to make an appearance and you wouldn’t want to dig in the area and damage the plants roots.

Flower clusters of brilliant orange or red appear in midsummer. Once the blooms are spent attractive green pods develop. When the pods mature they open to release silky parachutes that drift away on autumn winds. This is how the butterfly weed propagates as the seeds of the butterfly weed are on these silky floating strands.

Each cluster has many flowers, several of these flowers will have an inner whorl of petals that are called the corolla and an outer whorl of sepals that is called the calyx. Butterfly Milkweed is a little different from other species of milkweed in that the sap is not milky nor are the leaves opposite.

Butterfly weed is a naturally occurring plant that grows east of the Rockies in North America. It’s preference is for well drained sandy soils.

If you’d like to grow these lovely flowers plant them in full sun to very light shade. Butterfly weed is hardy to USDA zones 4 – 10.

If you’d like to encourage butterflies to visit your garden this flower is a must as the caterpillars of Monarch butterflies feed only on milkweed foliage. Adult butterflies of many species enjoy sipping the nectar from the butterfly weeds blossoms.

I grow a few types of milkweed in my garden and every time I gaze out my kitchen window I see butterflies visiting many of my plants.






Butterfly Weed

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Asclepias tuberosa
Native plant

Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) Height: 2-3 feet (60 to 90 cm)
Blooming period: mid-summer
Exposure: full sun to light shade
Moisture: dry to average; drought tolerant
Habitat: prairies and meadows
Range: Prairies and Northeastern areas of North America

Description: Butterfly weed is one of the top butterfly attracting plants around. If one of the goals of your garden is to attract butterflies then this plant is a must. Clusters of orange flowers are borne at the top of 2 to 3 foot (60 to 90 cm) stems; leaves are narrow and dark green. Plants get bushy if they’ve got lots of room and, if crowded, stay narrow, straining for the sun. The seed pods are also very striking, large pods (4 to 6 inches/ 10 to 12.5 cm).

Maintenance and Requirements:

Butterfly weed prefers well-drained soil and will tolerate a broad range of conditions, from sand to clay, slightly acidic to neutral soil. Don’t let young seedlings dry out, but once established, plants are very drought tolerant. Butterfly weed emerges quite late in the spring, so be careful not to cultivate around it, as it doesn’t like disturbance.

Propagation:

Easy to start from seeds, which mature in Autumn. When seedlings are of transplantable size, place them in their permanent home, as butterfly weed’s long taproot resents being moved. You can also divide rootstalk in early spring or fall.

Good Companions:

Butterfly weed looks wonderful with almost any summer-blooming prairie natives, especially Blazing star (Liatris spp.), Prairie phlox (phlox pilosa), and Leadplant (Amorpha canescens), but for something a bit different, try planting it at the edge of a woodland garden, in a place where it will get sun. Also looks great with June grass (Koeleria cristata), which grows in clumps 1 to 2 feet (30 to 60 cm) tall and has fuzzy, spiky seedheads.

Related Species:

Though the common milkweed (A. syriaca) is a much-maligned plant, many of the milkweed species are not only very controlled plants, but are also very good candidates for prairie and northeastern gardens. One of the most graceful is whorled milkweed (A. verticillata), which has very slender leaves and airy clusters of small white flowers for many weeks in the summer.

Wildlife:

Milkweeds are the larval host plant for the Monarch butterfly and also the Queen butterfly. Their nectar attracts many other butterfly species and bees.

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