Ep 216. Mile-a-Minute Remedies- Native Butterfly Plants

Mary Stone shares the Remedies for Mile-a-Minute Weed and how an inundation of the invader turned into a garden filled with Native Deer-resistant Butterfly Plants. 

Thanks for tuning in. 

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Mile-a-Minute Remedies – Native Butterfly Plants - Blog Post 

Ep 215. The Tiny Wonder of Duckweed  

The Tiny Wonder of Duckweed - Blog Post

Ep.214. Nature Sounds from My Porch Camp

Nature Sounds from My Porch Camp - A blog post featuring Blaine Rothauser's stunning photos.

Merlin Bird ID App 

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Mary Stone, Columnist & Garden Designer
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Welcome to Garden Dilemmas, Delights, and Discoveries.

It's not only about gardens; it's about nature's inspirations, about grasping the glories of the world around us, gathering what we learned from mother nature, and carrying these lessons into our garden of life. So, let's jump in in the spirit of learning from each other. We have lots to talk about.

Thanks for tuning in, Mary Stone
Garden Dilemmas? AskMaryStone.com
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Transcript

Ep 216 Mile-a-Minute Remedies- Native Butterfly Plants

Sun, Aug 10, 2025 9:57AM • 10:41

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Garden dilemmas, native plants, butterfly garden, mile-a-minute weed, barred owl, Merlin bird ID, deer-resistant plants, native nectar plants, kudzu, biological control, weevil, vegetable garden, screen porch, nature sounds, garden center.

SPEAKERS

Mary Stone

Mary Stone  00:00

Mary Stone, Hello, fellow lovers of all things green. I'm Mary Stone, and welcome to Garden Dilemmas, Delights and Discoveries. It's not only about gardens. It's about nature's inspirations, about grasping the glories of the world around us, gathering what we learn from mother nature, and carrying these lessons into our garden of life. So let's jump in, in the spirit of learning from each other, we have lots to talk about. 

Mary Stone  00:26

Hello, there. It's Mary Stone on the screen porch trying to dodge all the singers. We have the night singers, and we have the cicadas singing in the trees, and there's very little time that one is not doing their thing. So it's been quite noisy, but of course, I adore the sounds on the screen porch. I've been doing a lot of camping out here, although it's heating up again during the day, but I can feel the shift in the August evenings and overnights are a bit cooler, so it's a good time to plant another round of your vegetables, such as snap peas, and I put some more green beans in the ground. I've had such a comedy of errors in my vegetable garden this year, between all the rain in the spring that rotted a lot of seeds and and then just busyness getting in my way. But I have a lot of things going on. I hope I have more than I've gotten in terms of harvest. To date, five cherry tomatoes and two snap peas. But it's amazing how joyful The harvest is, even though the cost per veggie is crazy silly, but it's a labor of love, which is a beautiful thing. 

Mary Stone  01:33

I want to thank those of you that reached back after our last chat about The Wonders of Duckweed, and for those that solve the mystery, singer. Alex Bartling, who produces our podcast, was the first to identify the mystery singer from last week. It's a Barred Owl, and he used a cool app called Merlin bird ID that identifies bird sounds. So I now have that loaded on my phone so I can just take it out from under my futon sheets and listen to the sound and identify it. What a handy thing. Then Blaine Rothhuaser piped in, sending two stunning photos. I'll have to add to my Nature Sounds from my Porch Camp post. I'm sure you know by now you had a barred owl --Who cooks for you. Who cooks for you. He put in quotes, and that is the sound of the barred owl hooting call. But I have to say, the night that I heard it, it wasn't that classic hoot and that I had to dig in and learn more about this beautiful owl with soulful brown eyes and brown and white striped plumage that hides itself in the woods as it flies through them, or you may not even notice him snoozing on a tree. 

Mary Stone  02:47

So today, we're going to revisit the mile-a-minute dilemma, because it's been showing up at several clients properties in the last few weeks, and now is the time to address it before the berries ripen. I was at the eye doctor the other day, and I was chatting with the gal at the desk named Pat who was describing her overwhelming mile-a-minute dilemma, reminding me of a story of a client long ago who turned her dilemma into an opportunity for a haven for butterflies. And it starts like this.

Mary Stone  03:17

Hello, fellow lovers of all things green. Sarah of Hope New Jersey cleared out her mile-a-minute weedy dilemma. She proudly sent photos of her garden poised to be a butterfly garden, and asked if there was a list of native deer resistant butterfly plants she could consider. Yes, indeed! Mile-a-minute weed (Persicaria perfoliate) is a light green vine with almost perfect triangular leaves that grows as much as six inches a day and 25 feet a season. It's also known as devil's tail tear thumb, as it resembles the native Halberdleaf tearthumb and Arrowleaf tearthumb. But the pea-sized blue fruits and the almost perfect triangular leaves are distinctive of Mile-a-minute. And I have been tackling it in my woods. I've stayed ahead of it, which is the key to success. There's one patch, though, that every year I'm out there, and I did it with my bare hands. Not a good idea, because it's got some prickly parts. 

Mary Stone  04:15

It hangs like thick draperies on trees and shrubs, which can kill them quickly as it shades its hosts from photosynthesis. Folks compare it to the kudzu dilemma that suffocates trees in warmer climates. Each plant produces 1000s of green berries in mid July, it's when the berries ripen to a reflective blue hue that birds and other critters flock which is how it spreads rapidly by way of their excrement. Continually mowing, weeding out or allowing your goats and sheep to graze is the most effective way to remove it. They are shallow rooted and easy to pull, so weed them out sooner rather than later. Otherwise, it's hard to get to the origin of a plant, which is the case with Sarah's invasion. However, I suggested she keep yanking with gloves to protect her from their prickly parts until she gets to the origin of the plant. 

Mary Stone  05:05

The good news, it's an annual, and if you don't allow the berries to ripen, you can stay ahead of the dilemma. There's a biological control using a weevil native to China, Japan, Korea and Russia and Far East that feeds on the plants. It was studied for several years before being released to ensure that it would not harm native plants. They feed on the stems of the mile-a-minute killing the foliage above it, thereby reducing the number of seeds that form. One of my clients did release the weevil, and you can acquire it through your extension offices, I believe. And there's little bit of improvement, I must say, but I'm not seeing it dramatically impacting his huge population. So the manual approach is probably the best way back to Sarah's request for native deer resistant butterfly plants. 

Mary Stone  05:55

Native plants are often easier to grow, and more importantly, insects and animals rely on them. For example, an oak tree can support over 500 species of moths and butterflies amongst other insects. In contrast, Bradford pear, a common ornamental, non native, supports fewer than 100 the more insects. The more bird food available, and that's a good thing. The Native Plant Society of New Jersey publishes host plants, which provides a habitat for butterfly larva, which is caterpillars that they feed on, and indicates which species they attract. They also publish a list of native nectar plants. These plants are also native to Pennsylvania and many other areas, but check with your local Native Plant Society to see what's native in your neck of the woods. I cross referenced the butterfly plants with deer resistant native plants, and came up with the following beauties. T

Mary Stone  06:50

ree hosts include birches, eastern red cedar, American Holly, oaks, pines, pawpaw trees and red bud. Once leaves rise above browsing level other native host trees like sassafras, tulip trees, hickories and walnuts are deer resistant too. Shrub hosts include dogwoods, meadow sweets, arrowwood, viburnum, black Haw viburnum, choke berries, New Jersey tea and spicebush. The latter two are nectar plants as well. Host native grasses and sedges include Little Bluestem panic grasses, which is panicum and Carex, which is, of course, the botanical name for sedges. There are many deer resistant native nectar plants such as bee balm. I prefer to call it by its botanical name, monarda. There's blazing stars, liatris, cone flowers, golden rod, hyssops, iron weed, tick seed, phlox and sneeze weed. My favorite is in its late summer glory now, Joe pye weed, which is eupatorium with its mop like bursts of pinkish mauve fluff rising four to seven feet high. I have it peeking all over the garden right now, rising high, I should say, beyond peaking. Perhaps you are wondering why butterfly bush is not on the list. Not only is it not native, but caterpillars don't feed on the plant. 

Mary Stone  08:12

Douglas Tallamy, the author of the must read, Bringing Nature Home, writes, to have butterflies, we need to make butterflies. By planting an assortment such as butterfly weed, common milkweed and swamp milkweed, you'll attract many species of butterflies from June through September. So dig in and help make more butterflies. Sorry, deer, we'll stick with the deer resistant plants. Garden dilemmas. Ask marystone.com.

Mary Stone  08:40

 So again, mile-a-minute weed has the correlation to kudzu. And I had thought kudzu was not hardy here, but apparently it is in zones five to 10. But we have not had that dilemma here in New Jersey. I had heard rumors that there were folks bringing up kudzu from the South to plant on their dead ash trees so that they could recapture their privacy from the road. So I dug into that rumor, and it turns out that that may be a little bit of a false statement. Rutgers University reports that they had looked into 58 areas in the state and only found some population of kudzu in Red Bank that had to be addressed. And so I hope that remains to be the case, because we certainly have enough of our own dilemmas. We don't need to import others. 

Mary Stone  09:26

So thank you for joining me on the screen porch. I always enjoy our time together, and I hope you have as well. I am looking forward to our next time. I'm inviting you to write in about any dilemma that is capturing your environment, or tell me if you've had some luck in your vegetable garden this year, I could use some happy stories. I was at the garden center and farmer that I buy produce from, and they were just laughing hilariously at some of my faux pas in my vegetable garden. But I'm going to keep at it. Because it's so much fun to watch vegetables grow, just as it is to watch the beauty in nature and all the different cycles. I will see you next time on the screen porch. Have a great day. 

Mary Stone  10:10

You can follow Garden Dilemmas on Facebook or online at Garden Dilemmas.com and on Instagram at hashtag. Mary Elaine Stone. Garden dilemmas, delights and discoveries is produced by Alex Bartling. Thanks for coming by. I look forward to chatting again from my screen porch, and always remember to embrace the unexpected in this garden of life. Have a great day.