I really want a butterfly weed in my milkweed garden.
Their bright, deep orange blossoms look spectacular against their dark green leaves, they’re a native plant for my area and they’re part of the milkweed family, so—butterflies!
But alas, the one I planted a couple weeks ago promptly died.
Where did I go wrong?!
It’s sad when a plant you were really looking forward to having grace your garden dies. And frustrating. And embarrassing. Suddenly, there’s a hole in your garden or a dead plant in one of your containers that everyone can see.
I can’t do it! I’m a bad plant parent!
No, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad plant parent. And the truth is, in my case I was kind of expecting it. I tried a butterfly weed last year. It looked like it was doing fine and even bloomed, but it didn’t come back this year.
I got this latest one from a different nursery. It barely made it a week.
Then I read in my favorite plant catalog, Prairie Nursery, that butterfly weeds can’t necessarily handle heavy clay like I have in my front yard. They like well-drained soil. According to Prairie Nursery, I need a variety of butterfly weed that grows naturally in clay, which they sell, but which they’re also all sold out of right now. I’d have to wait until fall to get one from them, maybe even until next spring.
But I want a butterfly weed now!
So what do you do when one of your plants dies? You have a couple choices. Give up on that particular plant and go with something you already know works. That’s a totally acceptable option. Or try to figure out what happened—a post mortem, if you will.
Here are some pointers on what to do when one of your new plants doesn’t make it.
- It happens. Life is tough out in the natural world. Accept that it happens and move on.
- Is it really truly dead? Sometimes with perennials, the top may have died but the roots are still viable. A friend gave me a division from her false indigo plant (Baptisia) a couple weeks ago, which I planted, but from the start it wasn’t looking hopeful. The three or so feet above the ground appears quite dead. But a false indigo develops a monumental root system. In fact, it spends its first two or three years of life apparently doing nothing above ground, but there’s a whole lot going on underground as it works on growing its massive root structure. So I’m going to keep watering it and see if it can keep going, at least underground.
- See if you can figure out why and learn from it. If you can figure out why your plant died, you’ll have learned that much more about how to keep that plant alive in the future. Go back and read up on that plant and see if you missed something, or ask an expert at your garden center. It’s helpful if you know the conditions of the spot you chose for that plant so you can describe them to her or him. Were you trying to plant it in sun when it really prefers shade or vice versa? Was the plant not healthy to begin with? With my butterfly weed, the likely culprit is the soil. Butterfly weed prefers well drained soil, but there’s so much clay in that spot, I could have dug it up and made a pot out of it. Right after I planted my butterfly weed, we had a couples days of rain. I suspect the hole I dug in the clay may have acted like a bowl, holding the water in around the roots, drowning the plant. Live and learn. After all, Edison learned 999 ways to not make a lightbulb.
- Decide if you want to try that same plant again. Do you want to try that particular plant again? Was it just the wrong plant in the wrong place, and you could try again in a better place? If it’s a fussy plant to begin with, like a delicate woodland shade plant, or a very expensive plant, you may decide that’s not the right plant for you or your garden conditions, at least not at this time, and that’s just fine. Knowing what won’t grow well in your garden is important, especially if you don’t want to spend a lot of time or money babying a plant along.
- Was it the wrong time for that plant? It could just be that it was the wrong time of year to transplant your plant. A lot of perennials are best divided and transplanted in the fall, when they’re done expending energy on growing leaves and blooming and they’re busy piling food into their root systems to prepare for winter. Or the weather may not have been ideal. Right now, it’s really hot here, not a good time to transplant things. Trying to plant new plants during hot weather can put a lot of stress on a plant trying to develop a new root system. Native plants are tough, but even they need to be checked on often when you first plant them, especially if it’s hot, and they’ll need extra water and maybe even a sun shade while they get themselves established.
I’ve decided I’m going to try one more time with a butterfly weed. The cost of trying again isn’t huge—it was a $10 plant that died, and I’m replacing it with a $5 plant. But I’m going to try planting it in a different place. The soil in my backyard seems to be a lot lighter then the clay in the front yard, especially toward the back of the yard. I’ll put it in the garden I’m planning for the back. It maybe isn’t the ideal amount of sun, but it should get the necessary six hours a day. We’ll see what happens. Then, I’ll order a butterfly weed for clay for next spring.
It’s hard when a plant you’re really looking forward to dies. The nice thing about gardening is that you can always try again! Have you had a plant that died on you? What did you learn?