PlantFiles: Butterfly Weed
Asclepias tuberosa

Butterfly Weed is a perennial wildflower. It is hardy to USDA Zone 3. The plant will grow to 2 to 3 feet in height and 15 to 24 inches wide.

It thrives in light, sandy, well drained soil with full sun. It requires little fertilizer. Butterfly Weed lives up to its name, attracting monarchs and other butterflies.

Grows in Heat Zones 10-2.

Butterfly Weed takes three years to really flower but after that they're really dependable. The seed pods have small flat seeds with silk on one end used to scatter them. These plants come up late in spring; mark them so you don't dig them up! Cutting them back about six inches after the first bloom finishes will cause them to flower again. I did have a problem with Aphids a couple years back. I just sprayed them off with the garden hose.

Vigorous growth, beautiful next to gentian sage, but just could not keep the aphids off it! Every three days they were back again no matter what I used. Finally uprooted it and tossed it out. My garden consists of numerous small beds, many different individual plants together -- this has been the only plant suffering such heavy insect infestation.

I love Butterfly Weed, but they are hard to dig out - I had them growing all over the place. This year I have most of them in pots. I'm trying the yellow variety this year and so far no insect problems.

I love this plant, as do the butterflies and bees. It grows easily in my garden with absolutely no "help" from me. That's a great plant in my opinion!

I live in Maryland and am thinking about giving this a try.

Butterfly Weed is very prone to yellow oleander aphids - it pretty much comes with the territory. Some farmers use milk weed to draw aphids away from their crops. You can't spray insecticide or you will defeat the purpose of the milkweed - to raise Monarchs (among others.) I simply use a tissue and wipe them off from time to time, but they really don't hurt the plant or the caterpillars that I've found.

This is the first year I've had a butterfly garden, and I've raised 4 generations of Monarchs off of it this summer! A couple of weeks after one batch of caterpillars was gone, another would appear - always in groups. Make sure you get your seed pods EARLY in the year - my plants never bloomed again after June because they were constantly being eaten up - but I didn't mind because I loved watching the butterflies!

I planted Mexican Sunflower in with the milkweed to draw the adults to the area - it was a huge success! If you want Monarchs, you have to have milkweed and you have to let them eat it!

If you really feel the need to control the aphids, and your planting is too big to use mechanical control, use one of the oil or soap sprays. These are non-toxic and kill by covering the aphids breathing holes. It's easy enough to avoid spraying the caterpillars. In my garden, the monarch larvae seem to keep the plants stripped most of the time (no matter how much I plant), so the aphids don't have much of a chance to do damage.

Try planting this plant with Tithonia rotundifolia (a perennial often grown as an annual that self sows) as A. tuberosa provides food for the larval stage of Monarchs, but Tithonia, or Mexican Sunflower, provides nectar for the adults, and Tithonia's spectacular orange-red flowers attract the Monarchs to your garden in the first place.

I recently saw the two plants growing together in a lovely garden in Gainesville, Florida, and the plants were covered with butterflies. Their orange/yellow flowers go well together, and the usually taller Tithonia, to about six feet, looked nice behind the shorter Butterfly weed. There are also shorter cultivars of Tithonia that would look good mixed with the Butterfly Weed. And I think if they were planted all mixed together, the uneaten foliage of the Tithonia would somewhat hide the unsightly eaten-down foliage of the Butterfly Weed once the Monarch caterpillars had finished with it.

As for the orange colored aphids, a good spray with the hose, or just wiping them off with some damp paper towels, will do a lot to diminish their numbers. They never seem to actually harm the plants, but I don't like to see them in my garden either, so I try to get rid of them, rather than get rid of the plants.

I was surprised how very easy it was to raise the cultivar 'Red Butterflies' from seed.
Each plant flowered and I got the bonus of seeing my first Monarch catepillar up close and personal. They completely ingested that one plant but I had several others for my viewing pleasure.
It makes me happy to know I am doing my part to continue the cycle of life - especially since the SOLE food source of the Monarch catepillar is milkweed. And urbanization is starting to deplete that wild food source.
A beautiful and exciting plant!

Don't sweat the aphids, that's one of the great "uses" of this plant! It does attract aphids, but the aphids don't hurt the plant. In return, the aphids stay off your roses and everything else, and they attract beneficials, such as ladybugs. Since I've had some of these in select areas of my rose bed, I've haven't seen even a hint of aphids on my roses!

They not only attract butterflies, especially Monarchs, they are the larval food of the Monarch butterfly - so leave those beautiful caterpillars be!

If you don't want them to re-seed, simply cut off the seed pod before it opens. My experience has been that the seedlings are easy enough to pull if they aren't where you want them to be.

I really love the flowers, so this plant is a hard "worker" in my garden - great looks, easy care, bug control, and butterfly nursery/attractant!

Last year was the first year I got flowers, but they were so covered with aphids that I couldn't tell the flowers from the aphids. I did not spray with insecticide, but tried to control them with hard sprays from the garden hose. I will be patient and try one more year, but if it continues I will move it to the back of the yard where I won't see the aphids, just the color. UPDATE: I still have an aphid problem but this year my plant has been host to many Monarch butterfly caterpillars. Made all the hassle worthwhile!

It self seeds easily. I started with one plant and now have about a dozen after one year. The seedlings can be transplanted without too much shock if you identify them early and move them to simailar growing conditions.

I've found that transplanting 1 year old plants can be tricky with that tap root. I plant them in groups of 3 or 5 about a foot apart so loosing one is no problem.
For best results, transplant just as they emerge in spring.
Andy P

I transplanted my asclepias tuberosa in August after 3 years in the wrong spot. I got as much of the tap root as I could. I cut it back by about 1/3. All the leaves fell off but it got new growth from the base and has a bloom on it. I have had trouble with aphids on my curassavica but none on my tuberosa until I moved it to the back with the curassavica. My curassavica got to about 6' in height and when it finished blooming, I cut it back to about 3 feet. It is blooming and again. Next year I will pinch it back to make it branch and cut it back after blooming. My lantana and butterfly weeds are the bright spot in my garden at this time of year.

This is my favorite plant of the Asclepias family. It is really a nice height. I have read that it is hardy in zones 3-10. Light aids germination of seeds.

I am not a big fan of orange flowers in m garden but this is one of the few that I have to include. It is trouble free and reliable. Butterflies really do love it. A must-have in butterfly gardens that are lacking in plants for caterpillars to feed on. Raised beds and sandy soil work great for me.

In my opinion, this the perfect plant. I'm never bored with it. It's beautiful with flowers that have a glowing quality. And it's attractive with the seed pods also.

It's a good drought resistant plant. You just kind of forget about it and it rewards you more than other flowers that you have to take care of.

I find that the monarchs will lay their eggs more on the soft leaved milkweeds rather than the tuberosa. Or maybe what's happening is the larvae are moving to the softer leaved milkweeds.

Like a previous post said, it really does come into it's own in it's third year! The plant's tripled in size and it's covered with flower buds.

Last year it was growing under some other plants and wasn't doing so well but after I cleared them away to give it full sun, it really picked up.

I wintersowed seeds last winter. Germination rate wasn't that high, but those that germinated grew to about 10 or 12 inches and bloomed in their first summer. Very pretty!

Karen

Butterfly Weed Asclepias tuberosa is native to Texas and other States.

I have three plants grown from seed, no blooms yet but the posts above give me faith that next year will be a showstopper. There are already Monarchs fluttering by. The aphids don't hurt the plants a bit, but I hose them off when I do my weekly watering. I've planted a patch of dwarf tithonia cultivar close-by that's coming into bloom now (8/6, 7b), and am hoping to have a nice patch of Monarch-bait, and seeds to save for next year's crop.

Bought my first plant from the Monarch Butterfly Garden in Elkton, Oregon. A fun place to visit if you love Monarch's.