Aug 26 2010
Butterfly Weed in Your Butterfly Garden
Butterfly Weed is a good choice for your Butterfly Garden
One of the best butterfly plants that I know of is the Butterfly Weed; whose formal name is (Asclepias tuberosa). It is a perennial wildflower that is native to the eastern United States. You can usually find the Butterfly Weed growing in sunny, dry open fields, its range stretches from New England south to Florida and across to the western states including California, but not the Great plains states or Pacific Northwest.
Butterfly Weed can grow to a height of 12 to 24 inches tall. The fruit is a pod filled with tiny seeds attached to white tufts that are dispersed by the wind. Butterfly weed prefers well-drained sandy soils and is an excellent choice for butterfly gardens, cutting gardens, in perennial borders, or at the edges of fields. It can be grown from seed or transplanted in autumn.
The Native Americans often used Butterfly Weed as a medicinal plant. They would chew on the root of the plant, which was used as a remedy for the ailment called pleurisy, a lung disease. Butterfly Weed seed pods are also said to be edible, if they are boiled in 2 changes of water.
Butterfly weed is hardy between USDA plant zones 4 and 10 and is a member of the milkweed plant family. However, unlike most milkweeds; it has alternate leaves, and does not have the milky sap that the other milkweeds have.
It blooms from early to late summer, the bright orange flower clusters of the Butterfly weed are large and very showy, and as the name implies it will certainly attract butterflies. The Monarch butterflies will use them as host plants as well as nectar plants.
I have a butterfly weed plant growing in my butterfly garden that I started from seed several years ago. It blooms faithfully every summer, and true to it’s name it does attract butterflies. Usually the small skipper butterflies, but also the Monarch butterfly. If you want an easy plant for your butterfly garden you really should give Butterfly Weed a try.
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