If you’ve thought about gardening for butterflies then make this the year you include the scarlet milkweed in your flower border. It is a virtual butterfly factory. This tropical is related to native milkweeds but will literally bloom from spring through frost, making it a super buy for your gardening dollar.
You can experience the whole life cycle of the butterfly with a patch of these flowers. The landscape itself will also become a blaze of fiery orange and red.
The scarlet milkweed known botanically as Asclepias curassavica will reach 24 to 36 inches in height and spread to 24 inches. Grow it in full sun with fertile, well-drained soil and you will find it to be virtually maintenance-free.
In hotter climates it will be perennial. In colder areas you will find it easy to capture seeds to start your own transplants.
You’ll first find them simply irresistible to monarch and the equally flamboyant queen butterflies. They will arrive to feast on the nectar-rich flowers.
Eggs will be lain and will soon hatch into caterpillars that are as exotic as the butterflies. The caterpillars will soon begin munching with a voracious appetite. I have had my plants stripped to the point of almost looking like a pencil cactus. This fierce eating lasts for about two weeks.
You might think this stripping of the foliage would prove to be the plant’s demise, but in no time you will have more leaves and flowers. The caterpillars will attach themselves to the plant head downward and shed their skin. Now it is time to go on the hunt for a chrysalis.
Chrysalis is another name for pupa. You will find these hanging almost unnoticed on the underside of leaf, or a branch. The chrysalis looks green, but in reality is clear and colors become apparent as the monarch gets closer to emergence.
This is the kind of fun that the kids or grandkids will enjoy and the experience will make lasting memories. It will also be a valuable lesson in both gardening and conservation.
This livelihood to butterflies like the monarch and queen would make this plant a winner in anyone’s book, but believe it or not, it the milkweed is also a delicacy loved by hummingbirds. You’ll find them gracefully hovering from above and taking in the rich nectar provided by the blossoms.
Planting season is moving across the country. Try the scarlet milkweed for an experience the whole family will treasure.
Norman Winter is executive director of The National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas. Contact him at: winternaba.org.
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