In some ways diversified flower growing is a drug. A drug made for my particular body and soul.
I adore the total immersion it demands, the complexity, the problem-solving… and though failures are as common as success, when I find a plant that does well with me, at my coordinates and in my hands so to speak (read vase), the positive feedback is a rush as great as any of the chemical kind (read adrenaline or endorphins, not cannabis and whatever else!).
Asclepias currasavica, “Silky Mix” or “Silky Gold” is just such a plant.
I can’t even recall where or how or why I first sowed its seeds, but it has been part of our regime ever since, and in no way has the joy it inspires here waned over the years.
Farmer-florist portfolios are purposefully radical, even brave. Simply put: we grow and style the stuff you often can’t find via the commercial trade. Enter Asclepias.
That kind of novelty and speciality often does require a bit of extra TLC, whether it’s on the field or in the vase.
I’ve just posted on Instagram and Facebook that our weekly market bouquet delivery to New World in Blenheim this week included some Asclepias. Our little town’s support there has taken us by surprise, on top of having gone into this particular season with a very deliberate re-engineering of our business, but in an open-ended kind of way. My point being we went into this season not entirely sure where and how we will find our feet after having let go of large volume wholesale growing.
I mention this as I’d love our customers to know we are working on all kinds of added value bits, including tags to go on to the market bouquets advising of special care instructions and a detailed web page with more information and techniques for caring for these “higher maintenance” cuts. Please know, though, after many a season of growing and caring for Asclepias it has always, always been worth the little bit of extra effort.
So, it’s really no big deal… When we pick we recut the stems once in the shed with a bucket of a few centimetres of boiling hot water on hand. The freshly cut stems go straight into the hot water for a generous, lazy 30 seconds or more even. We then lift them and into cool water they go. If we then use them in a bouquet or vase we don’t cut again, unless proceeding with the hot water treatment again. Vase life varies from 1 to 2 weeks, depending on how mature the stems were picked in my experience. (More mature stems last longer.)
I’ll end off with a bit of nomenclature. Asclepias currasavica is also known as Tropical Milkweed or Butterfly Flower. It is related to the Swan Plant if I have my stuff correct and indeed attracts the Monarch Butterfly, which we spotted one of on the field just this week, having been without for a season or two. Asclepias is tender in Marlborough’s climate though I’ve seen plants come through the winter at the Wynen Street wildflower garden deep in the heart of Blenheim. I save seed pods here and sow from scratch every season in September. The Monarch’s progeny in the form of the THE most gorgeous zebra-striped black-and-white caterpillars you’ll ever see can sometimes be found in our crop in the autumn. A special moment for us.
