Lots of plants pop up in the fertile ground under my privet hedge\u2014poison ivy, Virginia creeper, wild grape, Japanese honeysuckle, Oriental bittersweet and common mulberry, to name a few.\u00a0 I spend a good chunk of time every month battling them.\u00a0 It is a quixotic battle, based on the romantic notion that I can actually defeat these horticultural marauders.\u00a0 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. \u00a0The moment I turn my back, all of those invasive nuisances roar to life once more.<\/p>\n
This year, however, something completely unexpected emerged from under the shrubbery\u2014a desirable plant.\u00a0 Last week I caught site of something orange in the hedge and went to investigate.\u00a0 Sprouting at the feet of a semi-disciplined privet, I saw a healthy specimen of butterfly weed or Asclepias tuberose.\u00a0 Though my garden has needed one for years, I did not plant it.\u00a0 There is only one explanation\u2014serendipity.\u00a0 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\u2019s locale to mine.<\/p>\n
When not in bloom, butterfly weed is unprepossessing.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 In early summer, the fireworks begin as flattened flower clusters or umbels open at the plants\u2019 tops.\u00a0 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 \u201call you can eat buffet\u201d to the butterflies that pollinate the plant.\u00a0 The humans who first noticed butterflies gorging themselves on Asclepias tuberosa nectar christened the orange-flowered wonder \u201cbutterfly weed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once the flowers fade, seed pods form.\u00a0 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. \u00a0Unlike other Apocynaceae or dogbane family relatives, butterfly weeds\u2019 stems do not exude milky, latex-like sap. \u00a0This is a benefit for those subject to skin irritation from that sap.<\/p>\n
Butterfly weed is a North American native that was here to greet the Native Americans and later European colonists.\u00a0 It can still be found growing wild in sunny patches on the edges of woods, fields and roads everywhere except the Pacific Northwest.\u00a0 The genus name, \u201cAsclepias\u201d, honors the Greek god of the same name, who was called \u201cAesculapius\u201d by the Romans.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 He is one of the gods invoked in the Hippocratic Oath, still taken by graduating physicians.<\/p>\n
What does all that have to do with a humble, though flashy-flowered North American plant?\u00a0 The answer may go back to the historical uses made of plant parts by traditional healers.\u00a0 One of butterfly weed\u2019s other common names is \u201cpleurisy root.\u201d\u00a0 Pleurisy is an inflammation of the pleura or tissue that lines the chest cavity.\u00a0 Presumably at some time, an extract or decoction of the butterfly weed\u2019s roots was used to treat lung ailments.<\/p>\n
For some reason, butterfly weed has not caught the imagination of breeders.\u00a0 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. \u00a0Such mumbling would do no good. \u00a0If 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.\u00a0 White Flower Farm sells a mix of orange and yellow varieties called \u2018Gay Butterflies\u2019.\u00a0 Yellow-flowered \u2018Hello Yellow\u2019 is less common, but just as alluring, with golden clusters that glow with the faintest whisper of orange.<\/p>\n
Butterfly weed likes full sun\u2014six to eight hours of direct sunlight per day\u2014and well drained soil.\u00a0 Once established it can withstand drought and prefers lean, unfertilized soil.\u00a0 I would love to move mine away from the privet, but the plants sink deep tap roots and resent disruption.\u00a0 I think I will simply wait for it to self seed in more advantageous locations.\u00a0 If I get tired of waiting, perhaps I will buy a few more and install them in better positions.<\/p>\n
I think butterfly weed looks best paired with other butterfly-attractors.\u00a0 The orange variety would make a dramatic foil for purple coneflowers or liatris.\u00a0 Though endangered monarch butterflies use only common milkweed or Asclepias syriaca as larval\/food plants, they are happy to sip nectar from butterfly weed.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
When fate hands us poison ivy, we call it \u201cbad luck.\u201d\u00a0 If you are afflicted with that kind of bad fortune, put on your garden gloves and yank out the offending weed, roots and all.\u00a0 Install some butterfly weed instead.\u00a0 Your luck and your garden will be on the way to a turn-around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lots of plants pop up in the fertile ground under my privet hedge\u2014poison ivy, Virginia creeper, wild grape, Japanese honeysuckle, Oriental bittersweet and common mulberry, to name a few.\u00a0 I spend a good chunk of time every month battling them.\u00a0 It is a quixotic battle, based on the romantic notion that I can actually defeat … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3,1],"tags":[1217,1215,228,1111,1214,1216,448],"class_list":["post-1374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","category-uncategorized","tag-asclepias-syriaca","tag-asclepias-tuberosa","tag-butterfly-gardening","tag-butterfly-plants","tag-butterfly-weed","tag-milkweed-family","tag-native-plants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1374"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1376,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1374\/revisions\/1376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}