Well, my "Gay Butterflies" has been blooming for about a week now, and low and behold, it's light orange. I too also have the regular orange tuberosa. I can feel your pain, lol. I had purchased my seed from Swallowtail Garden Seeds. There are some soon-to-be-blooming stalks and the foliage looks a bit different. I'm hoping I'll see some red. If I'm fortunate enough to get red, I'd gladly save you some seed ;) But, that's a big if at this point. I had purchased A. incarnata "Soulmate", which is supposed to be a deep rose pink, yet it bloomed light pink. I also purchased "Red Swamp Milkweed" seed from Pinetree, supposed to be pink to purple (their picture shows a beautiful purple), and of course it bloomed (what else?) light pink. My A. syriaca just bloomed too, light pink! Now I really hate light pink!!!!!!!!!!!! I have loads of A. incarnata "Cinderella", which is what, light pink... It's frustrating indeed...

I would move it in the fall when it's close to dormant. I've moved Asclepias tuberosa many times, although it usually sulks for a year or 2 it survives. Mine are growing in the xeric garden which is a very dry sandy bed in the southwest corner of my lot and growing right next to the sidewalk. They do okay and even survive transplanting out there without too much pampering (I lost a hello yellow once). Yours looks exceptionally tall - I agree with Ken that your soil is probably too rich. My biggest one only gets about 2 x 2 feet, and that's on wet years. This plant is native to dry prairies so I would move it to a spot that is lean and dry. Not sure about other orange perennials, don't grow much because it's my least favorite flower color.

In our community gardens, a wide variety of milkweeds are offered to the Monarchs. Every year they are covered with cats during different times of the year. It's very common to find a chrysalis hanging from a garden border 2x6 or from horizontal vine supports or any number of different plant stems. It is extremely rare to find any of them on the host plants though, as the little cats seem to want to wander off to do their magic. I'm sure there are predations, but I've photographed any of the beautiful little encasinga and even had the privilege of watching the last instar unzip into the bright green chrysalis. Up until that point I wasn't sure exactly how it happened and it was amazing and surprisingly quick! It takes me a bit of searching to find them at this point because they are so well camouflaged.

Updating.... I have found only 5 monarch cats...only 1 of them from my garden. The others were on the wild milkweed along the road in front of my house. I just talked to another butterfly enthusiast, Jane Kirkland of Take A Walk books, and she's found similar circumstances from Scotland and other parts of the world. For people reading who hate bugs...guess what? You got rid of the bugs, with all your pesticides, and now look what we have...no bugs. (Side rant)