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Your Asclepias tuberosa patch is wonderful! Mine is only about half that size, but I have seedlings all over where I sowed this spring, and they have begun to bloom. I have several of the 'Honeycomb' butterfly bushes, yellow blooms, and they are just starting to bloom, so I'm watching for the Monarchs now.
BTW, I have blue-purple flowering creeping thyme under my Asclepias, and they were blooming together two weeks ago. What a combination, wow!
LOL I WISH that were mine! I have hello yellow and the regular orange asclepias, but they're in the jumble of plants that are my "borders." I don't have enough self control to dedicate an entire bed to a single plant.
Butterfly bush and butterfly weed are different plants. Butterfly bush (buddleia) is a fragrant shrub that butterflies love, but which can be invasive. There are some new varieties now that are supposed to be sterile. There are snobs who will say butterfly bushes are bad...but today I will not be one of those snobs. I still get confused and call asclepias butterfly bush, but they're different plants.
Butterfly weed (asclepias) is generally a herbaceous perennial (I understand there may be annual varieties as well) and it is the only plant which is host to the monarch butterfly. It provides nectar, just like butterfly bush, but the monarch babies also use butterfly weed as their nursery. Based on what we know so far, the larvae only eat the leaves of asclepias. It helps them to develop a poison which protects them as adults.
Where I live in the east coast, I grow ascepias tuberosa and ascepias incarnata which are native to north America and are perennials in zone 7. There is also "mexican milkweed" which can be grown in warmer climates.
Here's an image of butterfly weed (this one is the orange asclepias tuberosa):
Here's the orange butterfly bush:
I MUST have that orange Butterfly Bush!! The Butterfly Weeds here did wonderful this year, all over in the country too. Mine are covered with big fat seed pods! Still no Monarch sightings.
I MUST have that orange Butterfly Bush!! The Butterfly Weeds here did wonderful this year, all over in the country too. Mine are covered with big fat seed pods! Still no Monarch sightings.
Then cut them back so they will rebloom. Wait until later in the season to let them go to mature seed. Mine will bloom all summer if I keep cutting them back.
I MUST have that orange Butterfly Bush!! The Butterfly Weeds here did wonderful this year, all over in the country too. Mine are covered with big fat seed pods! Still no Monarch sightings.
Then cut them back so they will rebloom. Wait until later in the season to let them go to mature seed. Mine will bloom all summer if I keep cutting them back.
Then cut them back so they will rebloom. Wait until later in the season to let them go to mature seed. Mine will bloom all summer if I keep cutting them back.
I do the same with butterfly bushes in my clients yards and every other year they get cut down to about 4 feet tall. I let mine get to 20 feet tall as both a hedge row and to block the two story apartments across the street from my side yard, now they are butterfly trees with one foot to 2 foot wide trunks and a canopy spread also about 20 feet wide. I rarely ever water mine but for the first year when I put a soaker hose down the length of the hedgerow, now the hedge row has engulfed the soaker hose. My orange and yellow butterfly bushes have pom pom flowers. I lost my white one and accidentally gave my pink one away. Along a country road I ride my bike on, I found a pale blue butterfly bush with pom pom flowers instead of spikes. I am waiting for it to bloom again so that I can take cuttings of it.
I do the same with butterfly bushes in my clients yards and every other year they get cut down to about 4 feet tall. I let mine get to 20 feet tall as both a hedge row and to block the two story apartments across the street from my side yard, now they are butterfly trees with one foot to 2 foot wide trunks and a canopy spread also about 20 feet wide. I rarely ever water mine but for the first year when I put a soaker hose down the length of the hedgerow, now the hedge row has engulfed the soaker hose. My orange and yellow butterfly bushes have pom pom flowers. I lost my white one and accidentally gave my pink one away. Along a country road I ride my bike on, I found a pale blue butterfly bush with pom pom flowers instead of spikes. I am waiting for it to bloom again so that I can take cuttings of it.
No, I meant cut back the butterfly weed, the asclepias. If they go to pods and seeds now, you and the butterflies will be deprived of more blooms this summer. I shear mine back by about a third after they bloom and then let the pods develop in September. Still haven't seen any Monarch's though.
That's an interesting article, Nita. Now, this caught my eye:
"The paper, published online by the journal Insect Conservation and Diversity, attributes the decrease partly to the loss of milkweed from use of “Roundup Ready” crops. Other causes, it says, are the loss of milkweed to land development, illegal logging at the wintering sites in Mexico, and severe weather."
The Roundup-ready crops are GMO. Farmers can spray their fields and kill the weeds, but not the crops. So it's the Roundup, not technically the GMO crops, that kill the milkweed, as well as all the other weeds in the fields.
Huh. Maybe we need a Roundup ready milkweed. Turnabout's fair play, huh?
No, I meant cut back the butterfly weed, the asclepias...
Everyone should be careful about cutting. My husband went to snip some parsley last night - and came back with more caterpillars than parsley .
I find that if I plant the things that birds/butterflies/bees like to eat - they tend to come every year and hang around. FWIW - Mexican heather is very attractive to bees. Robyn
...and other butterflies,bees,etc. I would like to encourage everyone to do all you can to plant native flowers that attract Monarchs & honeybees,as they are being seriously decimated by the increased use of chemicals & loss of habitat.
I have seen very few bees this year,and only 4 Monarchs. So very sad.
They are all at my house!
Seriously, my coneflowers, sunflowers, and bee balm are simply alive with bees and butterflies. Before that they were in my Virginia creeper vines and chives. I haven't seen many monarchs yet, but they show up for the Joe Pye Weed, milk weed, and golden rod.
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I still get confused and call asclepias butterfly bush, but they're different plants.
