I have 3 pots of Asclepias tuberosa seedlings and 15 pots of Aslepias Hello Yellow to plant out this week.

Each pot has 3 to 8 seedlings. Normally I separate multiple seedlings before planting but Asclepias has a taproot and I think that would damage some or all of the seedlings so I was planning to just plant out each block in its entirety.

I've seen Asclepias referred to occassionally as having a "clumping" habit but its never been clear to me just what that means. So my question is, do I need to clip off some or all of the extra seedlings in each block when I set them out, or is it ok to leave all the little seedlings there together, if Asclepias truly does have a "clumping" habit, which I take to mean several plants can successfully grow close together like that?

No help here?

I would not separate the seedlings.

I agree, but should I clip off some or all of the extras after planting them out?

I just can't find any info about what "clumping habit" actually means and not all asclepias cultivation info even mentions that.

Thanks for the response.

I'd also leave them together. The "clumping" habit is just a description against those that have a running habit. Common milkweed for instance will send runners out 10' away from where it's growing. It's the reason I dug mine up this week and moved them to behind the garage and planted a different better behaved milkweed that clumps. So you do want them to stay into clumps, it's their natural growth habit.

If you're trying to stretch them out and get more plants out of them, I suppose you could try separating them, but that would be more stress on both of them when you separate 2 of them. Best way is just plant them as is for best chance of making it.

I've got plenty of plants - well I would have liked more of the common species (Asclepias tuberosa) but there were only 3 plants and I found them scattered around in odd places as it was. The Hello Yellow I just bought all of them that were left, which was nearly a whole flat. So I have 15 pots of Hello Yellow and 3 of the "regular" Asclepias Tuberosa.

But each pot has multiple seedlings in them. My dilemma is whether or not to clip of some or all of the extras after I plant them out. So I would end up with just one seedling per planted pot or 2 or 3 or whatever is "normal" for Butterfly Weed. I don't know how many to leave after planting them out.

Thanks for responding.

I usually wait to make that kind of decision until I unpot the plants. If they fall apart easily, they can be planted separately. If it looks/feels like I'll need to do a lot of damage, I plant the whole root ball.

In addition to what Nancy said, I think of clumping as a multiple-stemmed individual, vs. something like a sunflower that is usually a single stem.

I wouldn't clip anything. The plants will sort themselves out.

The "common milkweed" I was referring to is Asclepias Syriaca, that will send out the many constant runners. Asclepias Tuberosa is a clumping type of milkweed. If you bought them in pots (vs starting your own from seed), I'm betting they're not separate seedlings but rather one plant that's already sending up more stems in the clump. Growers always pinch their potted plants back to encourage more branching and force more stems. So again, I wouldn't separate them.

The "tuberosa" part of the name indicates that it makes a tuber.

This grower routinely overseeds their pots - I can get 8 or 10 basil plants out of just one pot (and have every year I've been here). Ditto fennel and dill. The only plant from this grower that DOESN'T come with multiples is French Tarragon, and that's because it has to grow from cuttings. French tarragon doesn't have seed.

So I'm pretty sure those are all separate plants. But I'll go ahead and plant them as is, I can always thin it out later, right? I'll take pictures as they grow, maybe you guys who know more about this than me can continue to guide me through cultivating this unfamiliar-to-me-but-long-desired plant.

I really appreciate the help. I've wanted these plants for so long, and I'm probably only going to get to enjoy them for a few months. I'm setting the whole front yard up to be a butterfly garden. If I were going to be here longer, the whole yard would go to the birds, bees, butterflies, and other wildlife. I'm guessing when its sold whoever buys it will just end up ripping up nearly everything and putting in that pernicious weed that passes for grass, Bermuda grass, then pouring poison on it 3 times a year and wasting a lot of water trying to keep it alive in what is almost but not quite a desert, LOL!

So I want to make the most of the time I'm going to have with the flowers and the butterflies and hummingbirds. I don't want to kill anything off through my ignorance!