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Archive for the Butterfly bush tag

Butterfly weed and other milkweeds

July 7, 2021 • Leave a Comment

by George Papadelis

It turns out that one of Michigan’s most common roadside “weeds” is actually an outstanding perennial for our Michigan gardens. The brilliant orange flowers of butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) can be seen blooming profusely in June and July in some of the most unfriendly sites one can imagine. Open meadows, steep slopes, and grassy fields can provide its only two cultural requirements: full sun and dry, well-drained soil.

Butterfly weed was given its common name for appropriate reasons. When in bloom, its flowers seem to attract butterflies from miles away. Monarchs are perhaps the best-known visitors to members of the milkweed family (to which butterfly weed belongs), but many other species dine on their nectar as well. Painted ladies, swallowtails, and others find it irresistible. All milkweeds are suitable lures for butterflies, so select the variety that best suits your tastes.

Butterfly weed, with its flat clusters of small orange flowers, is actually one of the few perennials available in orange. Its perennial companions in this narrow color range include poppies, red hot poker, daylilies, lilies, and crocosmia. Butterfly weed is also available in some different hues. The variety ‘Gay Butterflies’ offers a mixture that includes orange, yellow, and red. An all-yellow variety exists (‘Hello Yellow’), but is often difficult to find.

*A. tuberosa* ‘Gay Butterflies’ (Photo: Park Seed Company)

More milkweeds

Butterfly weed has another North American relative with the less flattering common name of swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata). The common name comes from the milky sap produced from broken stems or leaves. Swamp milkweed varieties offer flowers similar to butterfly weed, but in two different colors. One called ‘Cinderella’ produces larger, rosy-pink blossoms on more compact flower heads. ‘Ice Ballet’ yields all white flowers that create the perfect backdrop for brightly-colored butterfly visitors. Both will grow about 3 to 4 feet tall.

Tropical milkweeed (Asclepias curassavica) is another popular species of asclepias. This annual form can begin blooming as early as May when cultivated in greenhouse conditions. It produces extra vibrant orange and red bicolor blooms from spring until fall. Besides a sure death every fall, it offers everything available from the perennial forms, but boasts a longer bloom time. Like its longer-lived counterpart, this annual can also have a place in the perennial border.

*A. incarnata* ‘Ice Ballet’ (Park Seed Company)

*A. incarnata* ‘Cinderella’ (Park Seed Company)

How to grow butterfly weed

Butterfly weed is difficult to propagate. Seeds are tough to germinate and it also has a taproot that makes it almost impossible to divide. Even transplanting can be problematic. Garden centers are the most reliable source to obtain young starter plants. Once established in well-drained soil, butterfly weed can flourish for several years. Competition from grass and weeds is rarely a factor, but tree roots may pose a problem. Heavy, moist soil (which often occurs in southeastern Michigan’s clay) must be amended with coarse sand, compost, and/or pine bark to improve drainage. Otherwise, good garden soil is all that’s required for this two foot tall, native perennial to produce its flowers. In more harsh environments, evergreen boughs placed directly on the plants for winter protection would certainly be worthwhile. Be patient in the spring, since the leaves of butterfly weed, like several other perennials, are very late to emerge. Gardeners often mistake plants as dead and then discard them before new growth is able to develop.

Besides attracting butterflies and adding some color to your borders, all varieties make excellent cut flowers. Blooms allowed to remain on the plant give way to narrow seedpods, which provide an additional dimension to the plant. These can be harvested before they split open and dried as ornamental seedpods, adding a unique element to any flower arrangement.

Butterfly weed is a Michigan native that is both versatile and rewarding for the true Michigan gardener. Whether butterfly weed is in your yard, in a vase, or on the menu for a passing butterfly, it is one weed you’ll never want to pull out.

*A. curassavica* ‘Red Butterfly’ (Photo: Johnnyʼs Selected Seeds)

Butterfly weed

Botanical name: Asclepias tuberosa (as-KLEE-pee-as)
Plant type: Perennial
Plant size: 2-3 feet tall; 2 feet wide
Hardiness: Zone 4
Flower color: Orange, orange/yellow/red, pink, white
Flower size: 1/4 inch wide, on clusters
Bloom period: Midsummer
Leaf color: Green
Leaf size: 4-6 inches long, lance-shaped
Light: Full sun
Soil: Dry, well-drained for butterfly weed (A. tuberosa). As its common name indicates, swamp milkweed (A. incarnata) prefers more moisture.
Uses: Perennial garden, meadow, roadside, cut and dried flower arrangements.
Remarks: Native to Michigan. Attracts butterflies. Very slow to emerge in spring, so be careful to allow new growth to appear. Has a taproot, which makes division difficult.

George Papadelis is the owner of Telly’s Greenhouse in Troy and Shelby Township, MI.

Janet’s Journal – A Drought Diary

August 30, 2016 • 1 Comment

Some gardening seasons are better than others. Don’t look and learn only during the best years, but also when disasters such as drought strike. There’s a lot to be learned, such as the fact that butterfly bushes, sedum and grasses not only survive drought and heat that wipe out astilbe and daylilies, but also look good under those conditions.

Plants that armor themselves against future droughts

After one of the hottest, driest summers in recent memory, we realized that quite a few species were not crispy critters, but actually seemed to be reveling in the heat and drought.

So I began noting plants in my own garden and others that rely almost entirely on rain, and made the following list. It’s hardly exhaustive—it’s heavy on perennials since that’s my gardening specialty, but even that list could be longer—but it’ll be useful for designing dry, gravelly beds or hot places where the hose won’t reach.

Hawthorns provide pleasant bloom in June, fruit for the birds, and respectable fall color. What a delight to know they also perform well in hot, dry places.

Don’t call it a list of drought-tolerant plants. Tolerance isn’t what you should settle for, because it’s not always pretty.

Joe Pye weed is a good example. They showed me their burned-back foliage, their drought defense mechanism. They simply hang on until late June, ugly though they may be with leaves so wilted you can pass your arm between stems without touching foliage, because then they can set buds for next spring. Even if they die back without flowering, those buds survive, insulated below the soil. It’s an effective survival technique, but hardly handsome.

So, some plants perfectly capable of outlasting a drought aren’t listed here. I sought and found plants that fare well in a drought and remain attractive too.

What makes these winners, when other plants shrivel or duck out in a hot, dry season? I’ve noticed a number of common characteristics that probably helped them survive. I’ll describe them so you can be on the lookout for other plants like them. Even without witnessing a plant’s performance under fire, you can probably bet on it if it has one or more of these attributes.

Plants with skinny foliage

The fewer and smaller its leaves, the less water a plant loses through transpiration on hot days. This was important this year, since some plants that might have weathered simple drought couldn’t handle the heat—they couldn’t take up water fast enough on the hottest days to replace what the leaves transpired.

Missing from the list are some plants with tiny leaves but a preference for dry air. Cosmos and annual bachelor button, for instance, are drought tolerant. Both are also susceptible to mildew when they’re under stress, as in a drought. Our high relative humidity insures that spores and chances of infection abound, so we see their lower leaves begin to brown and curl, victims of mildew.

Leaves held vertically

A leaf that stands upright escapes the full impact of midday sun. Bearded iris is a perfect example. It’s a plant that may never be as happy as when it’s planted in that hot, dry strip between driveway or sidewalk and brick house foundation. Yuccas and many ornamental grasses employ the same tactic.

Even large leaves can get by in a drought if vertically arranged. Prairie dock and its relative, compass plant, have huge leaves that stand straight up like canoe paddles stuck butt first into a sandy beach. Both plants impress me most in dry years, standing taller and producing sturdier flowering stems in a dry summer than wet (although prairie dock, a native of seasonally wet meadows, loves being wet at least through spring).

By comparison, and in explanation of some sad losses this year, pity the poor understory species often planted in the sun—flowering dogwoods, Japanese maples, redbuds, hydrangeas, etc. These plants’ leaves are held parallel to the ground, better to catch every photon of light that filters through the forest canopy. The only way for those leaves to protect themselves from full sun is to hang down—to wilt. In a wilted state they can’t photosynthesize, so the plant can starve in the process.

Leaves with a furry coat

The hair that makes a leaf look gray or silver also acts as insulation. Water released from “breathing holes”—the stomata—isn’t whisked away directly by the wind but remains trapped in the hairs as a high-humidity buffer zone.

Even a little bit of hair makes a difference—the downy foliage of a Tellima or the bristles on prairie dock and annual sunflower are examples. Excessive hair doesn’t seem to be the problem for plants that overdressing can be to people, however. Blue mist spirea and Russian sage, two of the best species for hot dry beds, have a coating not only on their leaves but the twigs too.

Leaves can fail to develop their rightful downiness if grown in cool, moist shade. Blue globe thistle and dusty miller are cases in point. They become almost green in the shade and apt to sag at the first taste of drought.

Waxy coatings on leaves

Here’s another means to slow water loss. Myrtle euphorbia’s (Euphorbia myrsinites) wax coating protects it even through winter’s freeze-drying, so I’m not surprised this plant looked blue, cool and comfortable all summer. And although giant crambes burned or were set back, their waxy blue cousin, sea crambe, never looked better than it did in this drought.

Tap roots

Plants that pull water from deep down can grow for weeks and even months after other plants have curled up and blown away. Tap roots are probes that can extend many feet into the subsoil.

Many plants have more than one defense mechanism. Waxy myrtle euphorbia has a tap root. Yucca and yucca-leaf sea holly (Eryngium yuccifolium) have vertically-arranged leaves as well as tap roots.

Butterfly bush may hang its leaves on the hottest dry days, but it comes through with flower even so. Now, if we could only help it stay ahead of the spider mites that also like hot, dry conditions!

Wide-reaching roots

Far-flung, stringy roots carry junipers, butterfly bushes and hawthorns through a drought. These plants aren’t limited to drawing water from only that relatively small area right outside their own driplines.

Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ has become the plant I love to hate, because it’s too perfect. Is it fair that a plant with good foliage all summer, great color all fall, plus winter interest should also handle drought and heat without faltering?!

Succulent foliage

You probably know that cacti take up water during the brief desert rainy season and can retain and use it slowly, even over years. Michigan native prickly pear cactus and many sedums can also make use of water that was imbibed weeks before.

Bulbous plants and others with avoidance syndrome

Listen hard, and you can probably hear tulips, daffodils and foxtail lilies humming with delight right about now. These plants developed “grow fast, then hide” traits to deal with bone-dry summers. In fact, Michigan’s normally-moist summers may account for problems we have with these plants as perennials—namely, that they won’t come back. If the bulbs (tulip and daffodil) or roots (foxtail lily) remain cool and moist all summer, they don’t ripen. As a result, they may not set flowers or might not develop a proper protective tunic, which may mean they’ll rot during winter.

Catmint is happy here next to a stone patio in 95 degree heat, even without irrigation.

Beats me what gives them an edge

Then there are the plants who survive by some facility I can’t figure. Yet even though I can’t guess why ‘Gold Standard’ and ‘Sugar and Cream’ hostas keep going when other hostas are toasted or prostrated by the heat, I can’t deny my notes—they did stand tall. Tovara, Solomon’s seal and goatsbeard stump me as well, as does siebold viburnum—this last has hairy leaves and twigs, but so do other viburnums that scorched and drooped this summer!

Most of these enigmas are shade-loving plants, and as such are not likely to withstand drought and heat if moved out of their element. However, I’m convinced that shade alone did not save them. Many were survivors in shade gardens among dozens of other shade-loving species that wimped out.

One last thing. If you choose to grow a perennial or hardy woody plant from this list, don’t simply set it out in a dry bed and expect it to thrive. If it was produced in a nursery or an irrigated bed, even if it belongs to the most drought-tolerant species in the world, it will need time to reconfigure its root system from a dense, watered-every-day ball to something wide, deep or both. If it’s a species shielded by furry foliage or a thick, waxy coating, it may come to you less hairy or thinner-skinned than it should be. Once established, things are different, since the plant’s leaves will form in hotter, drier conditions. So provide water during dry spells for at least the first year if you want to see your drought-tolerant plants shine the next time rains fail.

Half the world may feel that yuccas are appropriately named, but even those detractors must admit they shine during a drought.

Drought-thriving plants

Annuals

Dusty miller (Senecio cineraria)
Gazania
Licorice plant (Helichrysum species
and varieties)
Red fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum ‘Rubrum’)
Sunflowers (Helianthus varieties)
Verbena bonariensis

Perennials

Allium (Allium species)
Amsonia (Amsonia tabernaemontana and A. hubrichtii)*
Baby’s breath (Gypsophila paniculata)
Barrenwort (Epimedium species)*
Bearded iris (Iris germanica hybrids)
Blue globe thistle (Echinops ritro)
Blue lyme grass (Elymus arenarius, Lymus arenarius). Beware: it’s not a clump-former but a runner extraordinaire.
Butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii and its hybrids)
Catmint (Nepeta mussinii and hybrids)
Compass plant (Silphium laciniatum)
Daffodil (Narcissus species and hybrids)
Dianthus ‘Bath’s Pink’ and other perennial carnations having D. gratianopolitanus in their genes.
Fountain grass (Pennisetum alopecuroides)
Foxtail lily (Eremurus himalaicus)
Goatsbeard (Aruncus dioicus)*
Goldenrod (Solidago species and hybrids). Note: it’s not an allergen and there are excellent clump-forming hybrids such as ‘Goldenmosa’ available.
Hosta ‘Gold Standard’*
Hosta ‘Sugar and Cream’*
Lavender mist meadow rue (Thalictrum rochebruneanum)*
Leatherwood fern (Dryopteris marginalis)*
Michigan lily (Lilium michiganense)*
Myrtle euphorbia (Euphorbia myrsinites)
Perennial ageratum (Eupatorium coelestinum)*
Prairie dock (Silphium terebinthinaceum)
Prickly pear cactus (Opuntia humifusa)
Rose mallow (Lavatera cachemiriana and Malva alcea)
Sea crambe, sea kale (Crambe maritima)
Showy stonecrop (Sedum spectabile and hybrids such as ‘Autumn Joy’)
Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum species)*
Starry false Solomon’s seal (Smilacina stellata)*
Tellima (Tellima grandiflora)*
Tovara (Tovara virginiana, Persicaria virginiana)*
Tulip (Tulipa species and hybrids)
Yucca (Yucca filamentosa)
Yucca-leaf sea holly (Eryngium yuccifolium)

Shrubs

Barberry (Berberis thunbergii)
Blue mist spirea (Caryopteris x clandonensis, gray-leaf forms)
Juniper (Juniperus species)
Siebold viburnum (V. sieboldii). Caution: fragrant in bloom, but not in a nice way.*

Trees

Hawthorn (Crataegus species)
Honeylocust (Gleditsia triacanthos)

* Should be grown in shade or half shade.

Article by Janet Macunovich and photos by Steven Nikkila, www.gardenatoz.com.

Janet’s Journal: Observe and appreciate your plants’ flip side

April 25, 2014 • 1 Comment

Learning the flip side of bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) means employing a tactic that also tends to save the plant in the long run. Dividing bloodroot reveals its secret and yields divisions to carry on even if the mother clump falls to fungus. — Learning the flip side of bloodroot (*Sanguinaria canadensis*) means employing a tactic that also tends to save the plant in the long run. Dividing bloodroot reveals its secret and yields divisions to carry on even if the mother clump falls to fungus.

Do you give your garden’s flip side any attention?

For those raised entirely in the age of the MP3 and CD, a brief historical side trip is in order. Recordings of popular songs were once sold individually on 45 rpm “singles.” Buyers usually sought a “45” for the song on the “A” side, receiving the lesser ditty on the “B” side or the “flip side,” only by default—Elton John’s “Crocodile Rock” was the “A” accompanied by a flip side “Elderberry Wine.”

The flip side of pearly everlasting culminates in a show of lovely orange butterflies marked black, blue and white. Its caterpillars give a preview of the color that will come, if only the gardener is tolerant of their presence and some tattered foliage.

Most of the time the flip side got little play. However, the song on the flip side of a 45 was ocassionally a delightful find.

Plants and gardens are that way. Although we buy or grow for an “A” side—that certain shape flower, a particular fragrance, or a rich fall color—we ought to give flip sides a play or two. They’re good for a laugh and sometimes for longer term enjoyment, but even if appalling they are enlightening.

Pearly everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea) is a sturdy native perennial of sunny, sandy places that opens white nubbin flowers in dense clusters in August. The flowers dry in place—thus the moniker “everlasting.” The plant’s downy gray foliage gets little special attention, except when invaded by tiny “worms” in May. These knit together and despoil the leaves at the tips of stems, alarming and disgusting most gardeners—unless they’re given a bit longer play.

If you hold off on the insecticides, the “worms” can be quite entertaining. Small, dark and creepy at first, as they grow they become recognizable as the larvae of the American painted lady butterfly. Experience teaches that they will finish feeding sometime in June and depart to pupate, at which point a well-established pearly everlasting will grow over its tattered tips and bloom without concern at its normal time.

Given their long evolutionary gig together, it shouldn’t be surprising that insects are often present on a plant’s flip side.

View pine sawfly as a disgusting flip side to mugo pine and Austrian pine, enjoy their lively dance routine.

Pine sawfly on a mugo pine is a “B” side that can disgust a gardener. Given just occasional play, though, sawflies have a certain charm.

First, there’s the way they emerge from the eggs on the needle, a perfect row of bumps on the needle’s underside. Sometime in May the caterpillar-like sawflies pop out in close-coordinated sequence. The needle becomes a stage for a chorus line of tiny acrobats which first hang down, then flex and flip themselves topside to begin a few weeks of feasting.

If not blown away by a forceful stream of water or insecticidal soap during their debut performance, they grow to show the tolerant observer yet another dance number.

By mid-June a sawfly gang is clustered below the new growth, each member as long as and colored much like the needle on which it feeds. Even the preoccupied gardener notices the act at this point and pauses to look more closely. The colony’s response to this close inspection is a uniform twitch and freeze.

There is no way to save or replace the needles by this time. Once the needle-imitating sawfly larvae depart, plummeting to the ground to pupate in the soil by next spring, that stretch of stem will be bare. I usually squash the group and clip the affected stem back to a side branch, but not until I’ve given the group my eye and a bit of direction, moving my hand close and then away to choreograph the twitching motion. I wonder that someone hasn’t videotaped and exploited this performance—it’s just begging to be set to music.

People and plants have a long history, too, so that human interaction with a plant becomes part of its flip side. Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) is understandably well known for its charming “A” side, brilliant white flowers at first protectively folded into and then proudly displayed among mitt-like gray green leaves. Its flip side somehow escapes notice. Next time you divide a clump of bloodroot—you should do this every few years as a defensive tactic because clumps are known to succumb suddenly and totally to root- and crown-destroying fungi—break a bit of root and you’ll see the flip side in the orange sap that oozes out.

Celandine poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum) is a showy addition to a shady garden, with a sappy flip side. — Celandine poppy (*Stylophorum diphyllum*) is a showy addition to a shady garden, with a sappy flip side.

The sap of celandine or wood poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum) is a flip side too. It’s valued for its “A” side in a shady garden, bright yellow flowers in spring and early summer. Its “B” side is there to be discovered all season—a plucked stem can yield enough bright yellow-orange sap to write out a word or two. Harmless, temporary dye. It’s said that the great garden designer Gertrude Jekyll would write notes to herself in celandine sap.

The “A” side of prairie coneflower (Ratibida pinnata) is apparent in July – a wind-generated bobbing and weaving of its yellow-petalled flowers that might be titled “Dance of the Golden Shuttlecocks.” The flip side should bear the name “Lean on Me,” since that’s the act that follows when the plant is placed as nature intended, among tall grasses. Without the accompaniment of grasses or other sturdy neighbors, the flip side can be a bother, however, requiring tall, carefully placed stakes.

I’ve seen the flip side in a different version though, one so arresting that it literally changes the “A” side. Knowing that the 4- to 5-foot stems will splay in July but wanting to avoid staking, a gardener can play that flip side early and to advantage. In May, pull the stems down and away from each other and use bent wire to staple them to the ground in a sunburst pattern. The stem ends and the side branches will all turn upward then, growing to produce a spoked circle of half-height, self-supporting shuttlecocks.

Providing other plants a strong shoulder to lean on, ornamental grasses play a “B” side that should be a hit in any garden.

Few plants have such a supportive nature as ornamental grasses. They provide neighboring plants with a windbreak in summer, and perform the same service for birds in winter.

Ornamental grasses have quite a motherly tone to their flip side. Besides acting as support for tall prairie flowers, they serve as windbreaks for other plants and animals too—pay attention and you’ll notice butterflies and birds taking shelter on the lee side of a dense grass on blustery fall or winter days.

It can’t be denied that butterfly bush’s showy flowers and accompanying butterflies belong on the top ten list. But its “B” side as a natural staking system ought to get more play.

Butterfly bush’s (Buddleia davidii) flip side is supportive too. Delphiniums or cosmos grown within its spread can take advantage of this to thread their way up and then stand securely between the stiff branches.

Romantic blue monkshoods (Aconitum species) are certainly sinister on their flip side. It pays to know that eating even a little part of the leaf, flower or root can be deadly. It seems to have been part of some Roman armies’ scorched earth tactics to poison water supplies with monkshood, preventing enemy use of those resources.

Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) has a playful flip side. The foliage is well known as Monarch butterfly caterpillar fodder and the hemispherical clusters of pale purple flowers add color and fragrance to a wild garden. But watch a butterfly sipping nectar from an individual flower in that purple globe. Notice that the close-set ring of upward-facing petals parts easily and the butterfly’s foot slips in. The ring then closes tightly, forcing the butterfly to yank-step, as we might labor to reclaim our foot from deep, sticky muck.

All of the milkweed plants play this game. I can’t help but think there were other ways to insure that a pollinator’s foot came into contact with pollen, but this group of plants have a character that prefers to work by practical joke.

The “B” side of every plant is there to be observed, or it can be discovered while exploring plant encyclopedias for word of your garden favorites, or you might just piece it together over time from conversations like this between gardening friends. Dig a little deeper into your garden’s flip side this year for the fun of it, for a mind-expanding game, or to learn more rewarding ways to grow and use your plants.

Janet Macunovich is a professional gardener and author of the books “Designing Your Gardens and Landscape” and “Caring for Perennials.” Read more from Janet on her website www.gardenatoz.com.

When is the proper time to cut back a butterfly bush and hibiscus?

July 28, 2011 •

I have several butterfly bushes. Are they to be cut back in the winter or the spring? What about hibiscus – should they be cut back?

Butterfly bush and other “woody perennials” such as St. John’s wort (Hypericum) and blue mist spirea (Caryopteris) often require pruning in early spring. In severe winters, the tops are often killed back. Remove any stems that are not leafing out by mid-April. The established root system will quickly return the plant to its normal size. There are several types of hibiscus. The perennial hibiscus noted for its large, dinner plate-size flowers should be cut back in early spring to 4 to 6 inches. The shrub hibiscus, also known as althea or rose of Sharon, does not need to be cut back. It is one of the last shrubs to leaf out, often not doing so until late May.

Related:

Creating habitat for butterflies

Transplanting butterfly bushes

Plant Focus: Blue Mist Spirea (caryopteris)

Pruning caryopteris

How to transplant butterfly bush

November 10, 2010 •

What are the critical points to consider when transplanting a large perennial like a butterfly bush? These bushes have been in the ground for one year; how late in the year can I transplant them?

Butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii) is grown in Michigan as an herbaceous perennial, since many years we can expect our cold winters to kill back upper parts of the plant’s stem system. The good news is we can usually trust that new leaf buds will emerge low on the stems or from the root system, producing new main stems and flowering buds that will bloom in late summer.

Knowing that the butterfly bush is a marginally hardy plant in Michigan, it is wise to wait to cut back or transplant until spring. In fall after the leaves have fallen, the plant completes its annual cycle by relocating starches (energy that is produced by the leaves and moved down to the root system for storage), which will be used as energy to begin spring growth.

It is helpful to prepare your bushes for winter this fall by keeping them well-watered and supplying them with a slow-release, organic nitrogen fertilizer that will be available in the soil during spring when the roots need it the most.

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