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| Photo Credit: Mark Fishbein |
| Bloodflower (Asclepias curassavica) is becoming more popular as a cut flower. |
Whether it’s for attracting countless butterflies to your back yard or contributing to monarch conservation, milkweeds are increasingly finding their way into US gardens – and doing a beautiful job.
Native to America, milkweeds (Asclepias) are attractive plants that work well in the landscape and serve as a food source for monarch caterpillars. (While this can cause leaf damage, it usually happens late in summer as plants are going dormant and does not cause long-term damage.) There are more than 120 species of milkweeds that can be found from sea level to mountain tops and grow naturally in a wide variety of habitats, including prairies, forests and deserts. In other words: There’s surely a milkweed that will grow well in everyone’s garden. Milkweed flowers are fascinating in their complexity – rivaling that of orchids – and the species are highly variable in the size, color and fragrance of floral displays. The following plants are just a few milkweed examples that you might want to try in your back yard. Bloodflower (A. curassavica), for example, is native to Mexico but makes a great annual and would make a nice addition to a back yard. This bold-colored plant has bright yellow and scarlet flowers, narrow leaves and reaches 4 to 5 feet tall. A pure yellow cultivar is also widely available. Unlike other commonly cultivated milkweeds, bloodflower is grown as an annual, meaning that it only grows for one year. | Add Photo to Journal |  | | Photo Credit: Mark Fishbein | | Try swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) in a border garden. |
Swamp milkweed (A. incarnata) is native to the eastern and midwestern US but can be grown as far north as Zone 3 (think Minnesota and Wisconsin cold) and as far north as Zone 8 (the Deep South, but not the Gulf Coast). Swamp milkweed tolerates wet soils, as its name indicates, but it doesn’t require them. Bloom color varies from very pale to intense pink. The flowering clusters are more widely dispersed on the taller stems of this species, which reach a height of 4 to 5 feet.
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