Our Experience
We often have people buy this plant simply because of the name! The seed pods are the “hairy balls”. This non-native annual is extremely heat and drought tolerant and long-lasting. In the late summer and early fall all of our plants will be stripped of leaves by the late season caterpillars leaving behind tall stalks with the hairy balls making the plants look like a Seussian holiday trees.
We’ve also noticed that the ubiquitous aphids and milkweed beetles tend to not favor this species of milkweed.