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 believe that you are referring to ASCLEPIAS TUBEROSA, a member of the milkweed group that is grown for it's attraction for butterflies. In my garden, it is the latest of my various milkweed plants to bloom. I am in MD, zone 7 and in my garden it is just starting to bud out. Others of my milkweeds are either in full bloom or nearly finished blooming. Being in zone 6, I would imagine that yours will bloom a few weeks later than those here. A photo of my plant now. Bob

Minrose, thanks for posting! I was wondering what it could be???? I am just now seeing more PLs in my gardens since this spring but have never raised any either! I had a lot of AL cats on a couple of native weeds that grew in my BF garden that had volunteered & then when they had eaten all of the "weeds", they moved to a small Silver Brocade artemesia I had but I think it is gone now...it didn't like our Texas summer heat! I didn't bring the AL cats in because I didn't have any more food for them! I would love to raise PLs but I haven't found a good host plant so far! I currently have a nice cardoon growing but so far it has been ignored. What host plants are in your area??? Again, glad it eclosed for you! Take care, Lila

I think I'm not explaining my current situation too well. I get cats on my milkweed when there are monarchs around to lay the eggs. Last summer, I didn't see more than two monarch butterflies the entire summer. They just weren't there to lay the eggs. The preceding years, there were MANY of them, and I rescued and raised 75 more to release. But last year, plenty of gulf fritallaries, but no monarchs! I haven't a clue why. So my milkweed never saw a cat all season that I'm aware of. What I'd really like to see are more Queen butterflies in my garden. I've had one or two over the last few years, but haven't seen any lately. I think they are even prettier than monarchs. And I don't get nearly so many zebra longwings here as I did at the other house. I miss them. They are so much fun to watch. I get lots of sulphurs, several types of swallowtails, and my gulf frits more than anything else. And today, I had a red admiral sipping from wet dirt in the flower bed for awhile. They are not typically thought of as garden butterflies, so I'm always happy when one stops by. Katkin, I let the seed go where it will, too, but I needed to cut these lanky plants back and wondered if the cuttings would root or not. As for raising the baby cats, the wasps and lizards get so many of them that I like to help when I can. I don't always do it, but it's so much fun to watch them go through their life cycle up close and personal. Marcia