Showy Milkweed (Asclepias speciosa)

from $8.99

Botanical name: Asclepias speciosa • Bloom season: Summer • Bloom color: Dusty pink • Pollinator value: Heavy nectar for monarchs, bumble bees, and hawk moths • Host plant: Monarch

The sole food source for Monarch larvae! An amazing native pollinator attractor and striking addition to the landscape. A tough, sculptural native milkweed with velvety gray-green leaves and softball-sized clusters of dusty pink stars that carry a beautiful fragrance on a warm evening. It is the milkweed that belongs in a Great Basin garden, and it earns its keep: caterpillars feed on the leaves while everything else in the neighborhood works the bloom.

Monarch populations are dangerously low. Please reestablish milkweed clumps all along migration routes from Mexico/California up to the Northern US and Canada.

Botanical name: Asclepias speciosa • Bloom season: Summer • Bloom color: Dusty pink • Pollinator value: Heavy nectar for monarchs, bumble bees, and hawk moths • Host plant: Monarch

The sole food source for Monarch larvae! An amazing native pollinator attractor and striking addition to the landscape. A tough, sculptural native milkweed with velvety gray-green leaves and softball-sized clusters of dusty pink stars that carry a beautiful fragrance on a warm evening. It is the milkweed that belongs in a Great Basin garden, and it earns its keep: caterpillars feed on the leaves while everything else in the neighborhood works the bloom.

Monarch populations are dangerously low. Please reestablish milkweed clumps all along migration routes from Mexico/California up to the Northern US and Canada.

Size:

Plant Characteristics

Botanical Name: Helenium autumnale

Cultivar: 'Helena Red Shades'

Common Name: Sneezeweed

Native: Cultivar

Native Region: Pacific Northwest; California Floristic Province (also widespread eastern/central N.A.)

Sun: Full Sun

Water: Moderate

Bloom Time: Late summer to fall

Bloom Color: Red and copper shades

Pollinators: Bees; Butterflies

Deer Resistant: Yes

Mature Size: W 18" x H 18"-24"

Soil: Moist, well-drained

Pollinator Value: Late-season nectar for butterflies and bees

Plant Type: Herbaceous perennial

USDA Zones: 3 to 9

Spread Habit: Clumping

Available As: Live plant

Growing Notes

Full sun and moist, well-drained ground. This is one of the thirstiest plants in the catalog, and it will not be happy on a dry, unwatered slope, so put it in an irrigated bed or a low spot that holds moisture. Space about 18 inches apart. It is naturally tall, and this compact selection stays upright without staking.

  • Water: Moderate

  • Sun: Full Sun

  • Soil: Moist, well-drained; wants more water than most of this catalog

  • Mature size: 18 to 24 in by 18 in

Maintenance

Pinch the growing tips once in early summer for a bushier plant and more flowers, if you want them. Leave the stems standing through winter, then cut back in late spring, leaving about a third for insects. Divide every three years, since the clump declines in the middle if left alone too long. Do not let it dry out completely in summer.