The 2017 Perennial Plant of the Year has been announced! Asclepias tuberosa – Butterfly Weed has been named the North America Perennial Plant of the Year. Can we use this perennial in our Warsaw, IN and Syracuse, IN landscape beds? The answer is YES! It’s a Zone 5 plant and would look great in your gardens.
This new perennial will grow best in full sun and is drought tolerant in case you don’t have a sprinkler system in your landscape beds. It is also deer resistant.
Besides attracting Monarch Butterflies, it is also an important host plant for the caterpillars and queen butterflies. As it flowers, green fruits develop that then rupture into seeds with long and silvery-white hairs like the common milkweed.
This is a virtually hassle-free perennial that is long lived and offers three months of tangerine orange blooms. The perennial flowers also contain nectar and pollen which are attractive to hummingbirds, bees and other beneficial insects.
It will grow to about 2-3 feet tall and blooms from mid-summer through early fall. If you would like to add this beautiful perennial that your Warsaw & Syracuse neighbors don’t have yet, give us a call at 574-268-2566 or visit our Contact Us page on our website.