Wildflowers but not “weeds”.
There are two interesting plants here for consideration today. The tall, yellow one is a Toadflax, but it’s hard to know which species. It seems probable (ie: it ticks all the boxes) that it is Yellow Toadflax (Linaria vulgaris) also known as ‘butter and eggs’ – technically it is an invasive plant with a bullying habit but as it was introduced to the continent from Eurasia sometime in the 1600s for medicinal purposes, I rather think we can assume it has made its home here.
The orange flowered plant is a milkweed and possibly Butterflyweed (Asclepia tuberosa) which is a native milkweed that we acquired from a friend who has been cultivating it along with other milkweeds for the purposes of helping out the monarch butterflies. In this north-eastern part of the continent this is the specific milkweed that Monarchs lay their eggs on and which the caterpillars feed on. It is supposedly difficult to transplant once established, but we succeeded!
Yellow Toadflax (Linaria vulgaris)
Butterflyweed (Asclepia tuberosa)
Good going establishing the milkweed. Any tips?
I got them from a friend a couple of streets over – two varieties, both growing well but the tuberosa has flowered first. They were grown from seed and were easy to get started – I do know that while there are a LOT of milkweed seeds and plants for sale the ones monarchs especially like are on short supply so you need to place your orders early. Anyway, they came to us last summer as small first year plantlets and now seem to be growing well. They are tough, don’t need much more than a bit of watering.