FREE: 5 Orange Butterfly Milkweed Seeds

The listing, 5 Orange Butterfly Milkweed Seeds has ended.

Butterfly milkweed, a perennial wildflower, thrives in meadows and along roadsides, but they’re terrific in flower beds, too. These handsome native plants will attract lots of Monarch butterflies to your garden. Although a single plant produces many flowers and makes a colorful show all by itself, several clumps of milkweed here and there in the garden are even prettier, and they’ll attract more Monarchs. In a late-summer garden full of butterfly milkweed plants, the butterflies themselves sometimes seem to be more numerous than the blooms.

It is easy to grow butterfly milkweed from seed sown directly in the garden, and fall sowing will insure a good display of flowers the following summer. Sow the seeds in a sunny spot, perhaps in a corner of a flower bed, where you can keep an eye on them as they come up. Seedlings will emerge in spring, and the plants will grow both taller and larger every year. Milkweed seeds are produced in pretty, pointed seedpods packed with seeds, each on a shimmering, feathery cluster of silk. When the pods open, the seeds fly with the wind to find their own spots. You can collect the seeds and pods and distribute them around the garden.

Milkweed flowers provide nectar for Monarch, Queens, and little hairstreak butterflies, and the Monarch larvae (caterpillars) find the leaves irresistible. By the end of the season, some plants may be nearly completely consumed by caterpillars — but don’t worry, they’ll be back stronger than ever next year, and the butterflies will be, too.