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| Hi everyone--I bought a bunch of annual seeds for a butterfly garden w/o noticing that the Butterfly Weed (asclepias tuberosa) was a perennial. Now I'm wondering if I should go ahead and plant it with the annuals or put it in it's own spot, also if I should plant now or wait til fall. Summers here are very hot and dry, BTW.
My experience with perennial seeds is that they come up when they feel like it. For instance I once planted coneflowers that had instructions "spring or fall", but nothing happened when I planted in spring, I thought they were duds. Then in fall, I pulled tons of these mystery weeds until I figured out those were the coneflowers. Luckily, I didn't pull them all:). Planting seeds in my yard is a little bit of a pain because there are no beds yet until I make them. So putting them in with the annuals would be easiest. But I wonder how big the plants get in their first year and would they take up too much space from the annual plants already flowering, etc. Or will I be lucky to get any to come up at all? I've looked up the topic here, but most of what I find talks about starting them indoors, cold stratification, etc--I can't start seeds indoors because I have no room at all. Any advice from people who've sowed them outdoors would be welcome. Thanks everyone. |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| There's a thread about this on the winter sowing forum linked below. According to posters there you can plant it either time. I think the OP miss typed seed for weed, just ignore that. You might enjoy this photo of it as much as I do: http://allthingsplants.com/plants/photo/23298/ I have little sprouts of both the butterfly weed and the rudbeckia hirta that I winter sowed. |
Here is a link that might be useful: wintersowing butterfly seed
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- Posted by ken_adrian z5 (My Page) on Mon, Mar 19, 12 at 8:55
| one thing about this plant.. is that it develops an almost horse radish type tuber .... or similar to a peony root [i dont know if tuber is the proper botanical term for its root structure.. but i am sure you get the idea] ... and it can take a long time to grow the monster root .. and come to flower ... for me.. it is a very late plant to come to the surface [probably because it take so long for the soil to warm to temp.. down as far as the tuber goes] ..... and many of mine.. ended up being planted over.. with various other things.. because i forgot they were there.. lol .. i currently have one.. that comes up in he middle of a flowering almond.. lol ... they are not all that hard to move.. if you do it in the proper season to dig a large tuber ... which would probably be early fall ... ken |
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| That's why this spring/summer one of my goals is to mark and label most of my plants, especially the ones that disappear in the winter. I have one plant I have no idea what it is, nor have any recollection of planting it. But it sure looks happy and healthy. If I don't figure it out soon I'll make it a mission to get it id'd. |
Here is a link that might be useful: more info on butterfly weed, (Asclepias tuberosa)
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- Posted by ken_adrian z5 (My Page) on Mon, Mar 19, 12 at 12:26
| I have one plant I have no idea what it is, nor have any recollection of planting it. But it sure looks happy and healthy. ==>>> in my yard.. these usually end up being VERY LARGE weeds.. lol ... this brings back recollections of my first pokeweed.. when it got to 12 feet tall ... lol .. ken |
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| :) yes.. I have done the same thing.. but this is not a weed. There's even some of last years dead stuff under it. I'm sure its something planted on purpose.. a perennial. My first thought was a hydrangea but the leaves don't look quite right for that, and its thicker/denser/shorter than my other hydrangeas. Oh heck, I'll go take a picture and start a new thread for it. |
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| I guess I'll go ahead and plant them in their own spot this spring so I won't lose it in the other plants. My annual bed is probably too small for them, anyway. My eyes were bigger than my shovel when I was buying my seeds this year;). Thanks for answering, everybody. |
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- Posted by mary_littlerockar 8a-7b Central Arkans (mleek@sbcglobal.net) on Tue, Mar 20, 12 at 17:01
| The plant in the photo germinated in the spring. I've started them from seed in mid summer and spring. They like warm soil. My limited experience with starting this plant from seed is that the first year the top growth is VERY small and weak looking. After watching the same plant come back and perform beautifully the second year, my guess is that the first year it concentrates on root development. Good luck with your planting. Once this plant is established, it seems to be quite hardy and drought tolerant. ... Mary Here it is in it's second growing season. This plant bloomed and bloomed over a long period of time and many types of butterflies nectared on the blooms. You can judge the size of the plant by comparing the plant markers next to it. They are made from cut pieces of plastic mini-blinds.
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