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

In my experience these varieties of Asclepias incarnata (swamp milkweed) such as Soulmate and Cinderella do not come true from seed. You may get lovely plants, but the colours probably will not be the same as the parent plant. I just don't want you to be disappointed if you grow these from seed.

7The problem with deleting the autcorrect was I had to learn how to spell again lol. Why can't they make one with all the botanical names in its memory? https://www.growmilkweedplants.com/michigan.html There seems to be a close relationship between milkweeds and mycorrhizae fungi. I'm using the fungi on all my milkweeds. https://www.mpgranch.com/dispatches/milkweed-fungal-perspective