Another Look at
Milkweeds
Weeding
around a path the end of April, I noticed the plumb green leaves of
the perennial butterfly weed, Asclepias tuberosa, emerging. It is in
the wrong place but because it has a deep taproot it defies being
moved. When those bright orange flowers are decorated with zebra
swallowtails, any place is just fine!
Other members of
the Asclepias family that move in without invitation are not such
elegant garden plants but since the Monarch butterfly demands
milkweeds, we allow them to remain. There are more than 100 species
of Asclepias and they are being groomed by growers to be more
attractive. The genus was named for Asklepios, the Greek god of
healing and son of Apollo. Some species have a long history of being
used to treat various ailments.
The spring
shoots of one native to the Atlantic coastal area, A. syriaca, has
been traditionally prized by wild food devotees. I have never
trusted my ability to discern safe from sorry in the wild food
department so my experience is limited to grown-for-food plants.
This plant contains cardiac glycosides, allied to those in foxgloves
(Digitalis purpurea). When absorbed by munching Monarch butterfly
larva these glycosides make the larvae and adult butterflies toxic
to birds and other predators.
Butterfly weed
comes not only in orange but in an easier to mingle white and one
called ‘Mellow Yellow’. Orange is one of those colors that incites
strong reaction. Lots of people love it and as many don’t. It works
in small amounts to jazz up a flower bed in danger of moving from
familiar to boring. For hot hot days that seem to weary the cooler
blues, lavenders and roses, it is the golds, yellows, and oranges
that retain the energy to fight back.
A favorite of
native plant enthusiasts is A. incarnata, the pink swamp milkweed.
It prefers a moist spot as the name indicates but it will tolerate
an average, well-drained garden site. It can stretch to five feet
so doesn’t belong in the front row. The clusters of midsummer
flowers are pinkish but there is one ‘Ice Ballet’, a white swamp
milkweed that brightens a full sun border and is a butterfly magnet.
Less hardy than
the others is A. curassavica called blood flower, Indian root, and
Swallow-wart. A native of Brazil, it is an evergreen sub-shrub often
grown as an annual. It produces vivid red or orange-red flowers
from June to autumn on three-foot stems. You might want one in a pot
that could be brought into a sheltered spot for the winter?
Most milkweeds
share the milky sap that can be an irritant to some people and they
also share marvelous seedpods that are great in arrangements before
they explode into a mass of silky feathered seeds. When those pods
burst you understand the other common name for Asclepias, silk weed.
This floss is said to be an even better insulator than goose down
and I have read that it can be used with other fibers in making
cloth. Looking at this evasive fluff, one might think that an
extremely taxing effort.
A Tribute:
Gertrude Jekyll 1843-1932
Thwarted in her
hopes of a career as a painter by eye problems, Gertrude Jekyll
turned her artistic talents to gardening, to our great benefit.
Raised an Edwardian Lady with a passion for nature, in an era of
parks as landscape and matching yards of plotted pots, Miss Jekyll
turned those habits upside down. In her designs, she emphasized
subtle color contrasts and naturalistic plantings that displayed the
grace of the plant itself.
This naturalism
was not a rampant back-to-untamed-nature impulse but a natural use
of plant material for an overall artistic effect in the disciplined
spaces of gardens. Her use of graded colors in borders, moving from
soft to bright and back to soft again over the length of the bed
became her hallmark, winning her a host of clients. A Jekyll border
was not static but changed as the changing seasons required
additions and subtractions.
By working with
plants agreeable to one another, she created spaces that were
complete and distinct in themselves, not merely a part of a
theme-less expanse. In our day, this influences the division of
large gardens into garden ‘rooms’. Actually, more than two thousand
of Gertrude Jekyll’s plans survive, from small details to entire
gardens. One of her small designs was for the top of a garden shed!
The shed was crowned with a drift of sedums. Surely, the more things
change, the more they remain the same.
A REMINDER: The deadline for
your application to become a master gardener is May 29. Download
application at
www.gloucesterva.info/ext/mastergardener/ or phone the Virginia
Cooperative Extension office 693-2602