Why can't all wildflowers be as beautiful, bright, and hardy as Butterfly Weed? Big orange flowerheads burst into bloom in summer, attracting every butterfly in the neighborhood to your garden and stealing the show with color so rich it almost glows. The foliage is lovely, too, extending this asclepias beauty beyond bloomtime.
As its name suggest, this plant grows as effortlessly as a weedjust direct sow the seeds in fall or early spring and wait for the show. (It will bloom in late summer the first year from a spring sowing, then get onto its regular early summer-til-frost schedule for all subsequent years.) The flowers are bright orange, held upright in flattish clusters 3 to 4 inches wide. Filled with nectar, they are manna to butterflies and other pollinators.
And the blooms are only one of this Native American perennial's merits. The flowers are followed by ornamental seedpods, which can be picked and dried for indoor arrangements or allowed to remain on the plant, where they will burst open and scatter seeds for new Butterfly Weed plants.
Reaching about 2 to 3 feet high and wide in any sunny spot, this asclepias species is open-pollinated and famously easy to grow in any soil type or climate. Hardy from one end of the country to the other, it doesn't mind heat, humidity, drought, cold, salt spray, or poorly fertile soil.
Long-lived and lush, this perennial may become your all-time favorite. It is the Perennial Plant of the Year 2017, but for most of us, it's a winner every season. Strongly recommended.
