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Saturday, July 9, 2011

Three Milkweed

My big news of the day is that my new printer finally arrived. I've been limping along for the past four months with a printer I bought in 1993. I got the new one installed, and am working on rearranging one section of my office to accommodate it. So, I'm really happy about that, but seriously, how picturesque is a printer?

Instead, I'm going to share some pictures I snapped while doing work assignments on Thursday. These are the three most commonly seen milkweeds in our area. Note that the flowers all have the same distinctive shape.

First is common milkweed, Asclepias syriaca. It grows just about anywhere, and doesn't need good soil or a lot of water. Because it's so common, its beauty is often overlooked.

common milkweed

Here's one that is popular in gardens. It's called butterfly weed, Asclepias tuberosa. You can sometimes buy this in garden stores, but it does not transplant well, and is difficult to grow from seed. It likes nice dry soil.

common milkweed

The final one I'll show you today likes the exact opposite conditions. It wants to be wet, because it's swamp milkweed, Asclepias incarnata.

common milkweed

I really love the variety in various milkweeds. I have pictures of a few other kinds. Maybe I'll share those one of these days.



See A Promise in Green and Black
See Fluffies

6 comments:

rainfield61 said...

They are as beautiful as roses, or similar.

Duxbury Ramblers said...

We find it in gardens, so I expect it will make it's way into the wild eventually.

Emma Springfield said...

The many colors are eye-catching. Wonderful pictures.

RNSANE said...

Amazing, Joan. Each one is beautiful. Does the butterfly milkweed attract butterflies?

It makes it a bit hard when plants don't grow well from seed and don't survive transplanting easily! What's a gardener to do!

How do you manage to keep a printer so long? Mine die after about five years. Of course, mine get constant use, printing and scanning constatly.

Ann said...

I had no idea there were so many varieties of milkweed and so pretty too.

spinninglovelydays said...

Well no wonder those monarchs love them so much; they're gorgeous!