Missa, do you intend to grow them from seed, or purchase plants? Asclepias incarnata is perennial and seeds need to be stratified for at least 30 days to break dormancy. It's probably early enough you could do that in the fridge with the baggy/sand method, and then pot them up into small pots to grow them on for a bit, and then transfer to the garden. My A. incarnata didn't really spread that much since it is a clump-forming milkweed rather than one that spreads by runners or rhizomes. A plant can eventually get about 3-4' tall and as wide. If you want a plant that spreads by underground, you might want to choose either Asclepias speciosa or Asclepias syriaca to start with. Both can be invasive, but it sounds like you might have an area to dedicate to a milkweed that spreads. Seed preparation is the same for these milkweeds. I have A. speciosa and grew it from seed. This is its 3rd year. I only planted 3 or 4 plants, and it has already increased exponentially, and is flowering this year as well. Lots of butterflies, moths, and other insects are attracted to the fragrant blooms, which are gorgeous. If you don't want to worry about a plant that spreads like these two, I recommend you plant several A. incarnata in your patch. In late spring, I always plant seeds of Asclepias curassavica aka Tropical Milkweed, or Asclepias physocarpa, Oscar Milkweed, which are annuals in Oklahoma. The Monarchs, however, actually prefer to lay eggs on these two milkweeds. You just can't have too many milkweeds for the Monarchs, lol! The seeds of these do not need any cold treatment, and usually you will get seed pods at summer's end to save for the following year. Susan

Hi, Loris and everyone, I am glad you brought up the idea of pruning the MWs for fresh new growth. I never hear anyone talking about it on BF forums so I sort of had to go by trial and error. I like to try to keep my Incarnatas in bloom 'til the big onslaught of Monarchs in August and September here in Ohio and it took me a while to put together a strategy that I think might work. Here's what I try to do with my Milkweeds (incarnatas): I cut back just part of each milk weed plant. Maybe every other stem, or just the back/front of each depending on how it is growing in the garden. I try to leave about a foot of stem or more there, and also try to cut just above a node to try to get a nice branching. That way I have some of the mature plant growing and also can stimulate new growth and tender leaves. I do this with most of my perennials and I should imagine it would work with your A. incarnata too. When I did this last time I went ahead and made some rooted cuttings: I took the pruned off parts, trimmed them to a node on the bottom of each stem, left about 5 inches of stem, took off most of the leaves except maybe the top 2, then dipped them into a little Roottone and stuck them into a glass of water and left them on the kitchen counter. Now I have a 10 rooted cuttings growing in the garden. This was easy and a new 'trick' that I was happy to learn about. I wish we got some of your volunteers you pull for weeds! I never have enough milkweed. It took me a while to figure out how to work with the MWs to get the most out of them here in our growing environment in southwestern Ohio.

Hi Tracey; Great observations! I volunteer at a butterfly house where we grow a variety of milkweeds including "Ice Ballet". I collect information on which varieties the monarchs lay on in the house. I am not sure that it would apply as well to you because it is a forced choice. Meaning that at certain points, our milkweed is so covered with eggs and caterpillars they may have to use it. However, I can tell you that the caterpillars eat the foliage just fine. You may not find any eggs and cats on the "Ice Ballet" because they have the other milkweed to lay on and that is their preferred choice in your garden situation. Cheers, Elisabeth

One of the most beautiful milkweeds that I have seen is the tall green milkweed (aslepias hirtella). This beauty was in a wet prairie along the WI River in Avoca WI: I have lots of aslepias syrica growing in my yard and a couple weeks ago the scent was so strong, it filled the yard and was lovely. And the bumbles and butterflies were bustling about. One of the universities around here was doing pilot studies growing milkweed as an agricultural crop to use the fluff in various commercial applications. I went to a presentation on it a few years ago. One of the interesting things about the agricultural application is the limiting factor on them was pollinators. They would have to limit the field size because there wouldn't be enough pollinators for an entire 40 acre field.