Transplanting butterfly weed

Jul 20, 2014 3 Replies

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zxcvbob 12 years ago

Wife has been raising Monarch butterflies this summer. I stopped at a vacant lot on the way home from work Friday-a-week-ago to pick a couple of milkweeds to feed her caterpillars, and I noticed this field had a

*lot* of different wildflowers amongst the grass and red clover. Including Asclepias tuberosa, which I've never seen growing up here (Minnesota) Much prettier than the swamp milkweeds and common milkweeds that are everywhere. I made a mental note where the plants were so I could find them in a month or two to collect seeds.

We went there Monday evening and found 2 caterpillars and half dozen eggs -- on the ugly common milkweeds. They are in the terrarium now.

Tuesday I drove past the field and it had been mowed. :-(

I have read that A. tuberosa is hard to transplant; I'm wondering if that might just be the seedlings. Went to wildflowers.org and it says they are best propagated by root cuttings. They take several years to bloom from seed, so I know these plants have been there for a while and one or two mowings won't kill them. Just wonder if anyone has tried transplanting them from the wild, or sliced one up into root cuttings?

Thanks, Bob

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Dee 12 years ago

zxcvbob wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net:

Interesting. I wouldn't have thought root cuttings would be a good idea because of their taproot.

I purchased A. tuberosa seeds in a packet at the store a few years ago. I planted them in seedling containers, waited til they came up and grew for a month or so, then planted them (gently, so as not to disturb the taproot) in the garden. They grew and established the first year and bloomed the second year. Overall the process was extremely easy.

Dee

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songbird 12 years ago

zxcvbob wrote: ...

very easy to grow from seed given the right conditions. also greenhouses will sometimes carry them as they are rare or endangered plants (in some areas).

if you don't get any seeds give me a holler towards the end of the season and i can post some to you from our plants.

songbird

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Pat Kiewicz 12 years ago

I planted Asclepias tuberosa from root cuttings and small pots (both worked fine). The original plants have died--they aren't long lived, in my experience--but they are now established on my property by reseeding. Sometimes they pop up in the oddest places.

This year for the first time I have the yellow cultivar ("Hello Yellow") blooming in the garden from transplants I set out last year.

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