Poach my Prairie Flowers again, and I'll go North Korea on you

Poachers! Prairie flowers have 16-foot tap roots.

By the time this flower is six inches up from the ground, it's TOO LATE to transplant.

Had you asked, I'd have given you seeds and advice. FREE.

Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) is the famous orange milkweed species native from Canada to Florida. Needs fast-draining soil and full sun. Perennial. Zone 3 - 8

But you didn't ask. You STOLE, and you failed to get what you wanted. Here's what I hope you do get: chiggers, ticks, poison ivy, sand spurs, gnats, mosquitoes, and maybe even Lyme disease. I paid my dues, planting and caring for prairie natives.

My first orange butterfly plant came from a garden center; the rest, I've grown from seed over a 15-year period.

Here, you can see evidence of a shovel attacking my plant, digging and digging but never getting to the root. I added the log to prop up the dying remnants of this battered, dying Asclepias tuberosa. Prairie natives can survive a buffalo stampede or a fire, but chopping at it with a spade, no.

And now I know why the line of flowers to the east has dwindled. Someone dug up the plants closer to our mailbox. We've had utility workers rooting around here, so I shrugged it off as their carelessness - until the poachers left their evidence on the other side of the driveway.

Now I understand hillbillies with shotguns watching the road from their front porch. So help me, I will get a drone that shoots tranquilizer darts, then roll you in poison ivy if you try to steal the fruits of my labor again.

Asclepias tuberosa L. | Butterflyweed, Butterfly milkweed, Orange milkweed, Pleurisy root*, Chigger flower |
Asclepiadaceae (Milkweed Family)

*its tough root was chewed by the Indians as a cure for pleurisy and other pulmonary ailments

www.americanmeadows.com › Perennials › Milkweed
*Butterfly Weed is the iconic, bright orange staple for every butterfly garden. This showy native wildflower is easy to grow and does well in poor, dry soils. Blooms from June through August, providing long lasting color in your sunny garden. The flowers are an important nectar source for Monarchs, and the leaves provide essential food for caterpillars. *