Butterfly weed looks awesome all season. The seed pods that develop later in the season are very attractive. I love when it's seed pod opens in early fall/late summer and the fluffy seed-heads are released. Some years you'll get a second, less abundant, bloom even while it's developing it's seed pods. The seedpod will turn brown when it opens to release the seed, but the foliage will remain green into the fall.

BW's foliage is very attractive especially when mixed with grasses. BW will likely suffer some chew damage from feeding caterpillars; I wouldn't let that fact discourage you because once mature, BW has lots of foliage to compensate for any defoliation that may occur. The added beauty of butterflies hovering around this plant and the beautiful feeding caterpillars just adds to the beauty that most people can appreciate.

BW has a long taproot, for this reason it needs to be placed carefully in a somewhat drier to dry sunny location. Don't plant it near a downspout. Keep in mind that it is difficult to transplant once sited because of it's long taproot.

BW is an outstanding, interesting, beautiful plant without a doubt!

If it's happy, butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) will look attractive for a long season. Most of mine are growing in the hottest, driest SW corner of my lot along a sidewalk. The soil is a sandy loam, very well-drained. It is very drought-tolerant but will thrive if you water it once or twice a month during a drought.

It's easy to start from seed, but IME the tap-rooted perennial Asclepias species take 2-3 years to become a sizeable blooming specimen from seed. My A. tuberosa has self-sown a few seedlings, and they can be transplanted but will be slow to recover. Also pieces of root left behind will sprout into more plants.

Somebody on the butterfly forum posted that Prairie Nursery is having an Asclepias sale thru Sept 26th - this is a great deal and you'll have larger plants faster. They sell a Butterfly Milkweed for clay too. See link below.

Here's what my biggest plant looked like in July, next to Hemerocallis 'Happy Returns'.
{{gwi:140069}}

Here is a link that might be useful: Prairie Nursery Asclepias sale

Thanks. That picture is so pretty. I've always wanted to plant some but never did. This bed I'm working on is for the local park and I was trying to select all drought tolerant/xeriscaping plants since there is no irrigation. I will water for the first year but after that, it's on it's on. I also was trying to add more natives into the mix, with is about 50-50 now.

I've seen pictures of it planted with liatris spicata and it looks gorgeous together.

I'm trying to figure out how to make it work with the grasses, black eyed susans and sedum 'autumn joy'.

I should have added that I put this into my sketch, along with some Liatris Spicata 'Kobold'. These two were pictured together on the front of the native plant book I have and they look gorgeous together.

Consider rough blazingstar (Liatris aspera). Aspera tolerates dry conditions much better than spicata. Also, Rough blazingstar blooms later in the season which is advantageous, in that, it will keep your planting fresher looking longer. You could plant both spicata and aspera to prolong the blooming season of Liatris.

Here's a link that includes some nice native cultivars:
http://arboretum.unl.edu/greatplants/index.html

Here is a link that might be useful: Some other plants you might want to consider.

For a beautiful native grass that grows well with A. tuberosa, consider Prairie drop seed (Sporobolis heterolepis). You can't see it in the picture but there are 5 or 6 of them in that bed. It is a native short-prairie grass that is also very drought tolerant. It is flowering now, with gorgeous delicate flowers that have a spicy fragrance. Birds like to eat the seeds. I started with 3 nursery plants, but they've reseeded, so there are now at least twice that many.