Breaking New Ground

After almost a full week of being in an unsteady pot, the Milkweed is finally in the ground. Despite this good news, we discovered that the ground has far too much clay in it, along with the fact that our plant has wilted greatly over the weekend. Hopefully watering it twice daily (along with a nice cool front to help stop dehydration) will have it in good health by the end of the week.

The Purchased Plant

This is the Butterfly Weed I purchased at Buchanan's Native Plants. The Identifier is a flower... bracelet... thing that I won in Ms. Casperson's class last year.

Chosen Plant: More Info

Although this is a tad late...

The plant me and Rebecca chose to get was a Butterfly Bush, otherwise known as Milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) it grows best in full sunlight and well drained soil. It grows up to 3 feet 6 inches making it a native shrub. It is drought tolerant and flowers bright orange attracting Monarch butterflies.

Sources: Plant's Label, Native Plant Handout.

The Plant My Group Chose

Me and Rebecca have chose to grow a Butterfly Bush for our APES native plant growing project. The most obvious reason for this is because that the flowers are pretty, and the butterflies it attracts should be just as beautiful, but there is a more deep ecological reason behind this choice: Growing a butterfly bush would allow us to better comprehend the important relationships between producers (the bush) and consumers(the butterflies) within an ecosystem, and how if the bush were to disappear the butterflies might vanish as well.