Lots of plants pop up in the fertile ground under my privet hedge—poison ivy, Virginia creeper, wild grape, Japanese honeysuckle, Oriental bittersweet and common mulberry, to name a few. I spend a good chunk of time every month battling them. It is a quixotic battle, based on the romantic notion that I can actually defeat these horticultural marauders. As I attempt to yank out their stalks, tendrils and roots, I can hear the plants stifling guffaws. In fact, only Mr. Antlers guffaws louder. The moment I turn my back, all of those invasive nuisances roar to life once more.
This year, however, something completely unexpected emerged from under the shrubbery—a desirable plant. Last week I caught site of something orange in the hedge and went to investigate. Sprouting at the feet of a semi-disciplined privet, I saw a healthy specimen of butterfly weed or Asclepias tuberose. Though my garden has needed one for years, I did not plant it. There is only one explanation—serendipity. In this case, serendipity was aided and abetted by breezes that lifted the seed by its silky tail and transported it from the mother plant’s locale to mine.
When not in bloom, butterfly weed is unprepossessing. The plants can stand up to three feet tall, but in cultivation are usually closer to eighteen inches. Narrow leaves grow two or three inches long and are whorled along the somewhat hairy stems. In early summer, the fireworks begin as flattened flower clusters or umbels open at the plants’ tops. Usually these are orange, but can be yellow-orange or even yellow in some varieties. The alluring flower umbels, which are composed of scores of five-petaled individual blooms, are like neon signs that flash the message “all you can eat buffet” to the butterflies that pollinate the plant. The humans who first noticed butterflies gorging themselves on Asclepias tuberosa nectar christened the orange-flowered wonder “butterfly weed.”
Once the flowers fade, seed pods form. As with other members of the milkweed genus, the pods are long and relatively narrow, turning papery brown before splitting open and disgorging the seeds. Unlike other Apocynaceae or dogbane family relatives, butterfly weeds’ stems do not exude milky, latex-like sap. This is a benefit for those subject to skin irritation from that sap.
Butterfly weed is a North American native that was here to greet the Native Americans and later European colonists. It can still be found growing wild in sunny patches on the edges of woods, fields and roads everywhere except the Pacific Northwest. The genus name, “Asclepias”, honors the Greek god of the same name, who was called “Aesculapius” by the Romans. Asclepius was originally a Thessalian prince and physician, transformed by time and oral tradition into a son of Apollo and the god of medicine and physicians. He is one of the gods invoked in the Hippocratic Oath, still taken by graduating physicians.
What does all that have to do with a humble, though flashy-flowered North American plant? The answer may go back to the historical uses made of plant parts by traditional healers. One of butterfly weed’s other common names is “pleurisy root.” Pleurisy is an inflammation of the pleura or tissue that lines the chest cavity. Presumably at some time, an extract or decoction of the butterfly weed’s roots was used to treat lung ailments.
For some reason, butterfly weed has not caught the imagination of breeders. We who like the plant might respond to this lack of attention by mumbling bitterly about the relative merits of the popular Echinacea as opposed to the relatively underappreciated Asclepias. Such mumbling would do no good. If serendipity has not planted butterfly weed in your garden, you can buy the orange-flowered species from many online nurseries and bricks-and-mortar garden centers. White Flower Farm sells a mix of orange and yellow varieties called ‘Gay Butterflies’. Yellow-flowered ‘Hello Yellow’ is less common, but just as alluring, with golden clusters that glow with the faintest whisper of orange.
Butterfly weed likes full sun—six to eight hours of direct sunlight per day—and well drained soil. Once established it can withstand drought and prefers lean, unfertilized soil. I would love to move mine away from the privet, but the plants sink deep tap roots and resent disruption. I think I will simply wait for it to self seed in more advantageous locations. If I get tired of waiting, perhaps I will buy a few more and install them in better positions.
I think butterfly weed looks best paired with other butterfly-attractors. The orange variety would make a dramatic foil for purple coneflowers or liatris. Though endangered monarch butterflies use only common milkweed or Asclepias syriaca as larval/food plants, they are happy to sip nectar from butterfly weed. If you are looking for ways to help monarchs and their butterfly relatives, plant clumps in garden areas that also offer water and cover for the insects.
When fate hands us poison ivy, we call it “bad luck.” If you are afflicted with that kind of bad fortune, put on your garden gloves and yank out the offending weed, roots and all. Install some butterfly weed instead. Your luck and your garden will be on the way to a turn-around.