No Success With Butterfly Milkweed

I have purchased several Butterfly Milkweed plants from High Country Gardens, so I don't question the quality. I happened to be in Santa Fe and purchased two while there and carried them home in my brown-thumbed hands. Everyone seems to have great luck with these plants, but each one I have purchased is either dead or dying. I have planted them in both partial sun and full sun. I live in east Texas right on the line between Post Oak and Blackland Prairie regions. We have sandy soil and it's dry here. We do have irrigation, but plant mostly xeric plants. When I plant the milkweed, I mix some chicken/cow poo thoroughly into the hole with the sandy soil. I cover it with 1-2 inches of cedar mulch. The plant does fine for a while, but then develops yellow spots which eventually become totally yellow leaves, then branch by branch the plant dies. They never flower, because they never get big enough. High Country said it was my mulch, but one of the plants hardly has any over it now and that hasn't seemed to solve the problem. Why, oh WHY, can't I grow this wonderful butterfly magnet? Thanks.

There are a few possibilities I can think of (and probably several others that I didn't think of).

1. The chicken/cow poo may be burning the roots--I'd hold off on any sort of fertilizer until after the plants have a chance to get established. And even once they're established, make sure the manure is well composted (I'm not sure if yours was or not--uncomposted manure could burn even well established plants).

2. Planting during hot weather is stressful for plants--you might try planting in the fall when things are cooler and see if you have better luck.

3. You might not be watering enough. Even xeric plants need regular watering until they're established. Being in full sun and planting during the warmer months will both increase their water needs until they get established. With hot weather plus sandy soil you'd have a hard time overwatering newly planted plants, but it would be very easy to underwater them.

4. You might be mulching too close to the plant. Your description of "covering it with cedar mulch" makes it sound like you've got mulch piled up all on top of the plant and that could cause the plant to rot. You need to make sure that the mulch is pulled back a couple inches away from the base of the plant.

Thanks! My hubbie thought the manure may still have been too hot, since we have lost several other plants as well. Thanks for the pointers. I have made several mistakes based on your post, and I will see if I can fix any of them!

If you lost other things too then it's very possible that the manure wasn't completely composted yet. You can often tell by the smell--if it still smells at all like manure then it's not done composting yet, but if it smells more like plain old dirt then it should be OK.