It will do fine. It will spread, though. But the smell of the flowers is worth it.

thanks April :)
Is it pretty easy to control the spread? The area doesn't get much supplemental watering and summers here are dry...I'd love to see some monarchs,

Vera

Yes, common milkweed has nice aromatic flowers and will atract monarchs. But it is tought to recommend it for an area as small as yours, especialy one that contains other desirable species. If the soil is good (or maybe even if it isn't), it will spread through the area by runners and will tend to dominate the area due to its large size.

I planted a single plant in a weedy creek drainage on the side of my yard a few years ago. Even though it is not competing with anything desirable in this site, its aggressive spread and large size has given me second (and third) thoughts. Each spring I have to break off more and more new giant shoots that have spread through the area and into my lawn.

I recommend that you acquire other, better behaved milkweeds. I especially like butterfly milkweed, swamp milkweed, and purple milkweed. All of these are smaller and less aggressive than common milkweed and are at least as attractive (to people and butterflies). Swamp milkweed will spread by seed if there is bare soil, but it is not an aggressive spreader.

Well shoot OK John! I'll just have to take them out....I've already planted them since posting, so would it be ok to leave the 2 in place until fall while I prepare another location and them transplant them? We are getting rid of an eye-sore of a shed and I could make a plot in its place for the milkweed. Would the root-system be too big by then?

Thanks,

Vera

i wouldnt plant it around my 'special areas'.

its highly aggressive in my neck of the woods. and grows easily from seed.

froggy

vera - i think if you are diligent enough - and its only two plants in a small area that you should be able to remove the pods before they ripen and go to seed which should be enough to control it.

Thanks for the replies Froggy and Joepye :)

I already planned on being diligent about removing pods before bustin' out, but how easy is the control of the rhizome spread? Does water control help like with Max sunflower?

Vera

Mine spread fast and far once they were established. It is not hard to cut off the large stems once they start to grow, but they will come back.

One approach that has been recommended of 'Maximum sunflower" might work for common milkweed, too: Plant them inside a large, bottomless pail (like a 5-gal bucket with the bottom removed. I don't think the underground runners will go deep enough to escape. And if/when you decide to remove it, you will only have to deal with digging a small area

John - I tried growing a similar aggressive Milkweed - A. speciosa using a bottomless 3 gallon pail. Roots went down beneath the sides of the pail and then spread sideways. I've used the pail-as-jail technique successfully for a couple of other aggressive plants (e.g. Campanula punctata, Lysimachia punctata), but in my case this prairie Milkweed was capable of growing roots too deep.

I'm now growing A. incarnata (Swamp Milkweed) instead.

pail as a jail :)

and i agree that incarnata is a better choice. syriaca is just too aggressive for a newbe prairie. my assumption would be that on a well established ecosystem, syriaca would be more suited.

here is a link that i found on syriaca.

froggy

Here is a link that might be useful: common milkweed

OK...my trader is not sure now whether she has Common or Showy Milkweed! Is there a way to tell the difference? It is now in it's 2nd year and the one in more desirable area has a new stem at the base and the one in the very seldom watered prairie area is still a single un-branched plant. The leaves are about 4-5" long and feel waxey and smooth.

Vera

Vera, the other milkweeds recommended in place of A. Syriaca smell nice, too.

I have NEVER seen monarch cats on my syriaca or incarnata...but this year I had them on A. Tuberosa. The greedy things darn near "et" the smallish plants they were on!

I do keep a watchful eye on my A. Syriaca. It is spreading..but really slowly.

Vera, I'm trying to get common milkweed to grow, and it's slow in spreading. You may want to see how it progresses before you rip it all out. Unless I'm too late.

Milkweed grows wild here and it isn't doing well in my yard. Sigh.

there isnt an on-off ramp in wisconsin that doesnt have common milkweed on it. if u think u have one, u havnt looked hard enough. its ubiquitous here.

and early in the year, i had monarch cat's (tho i could never hear them meow) on both incarnata and tuberosa en mass. i thought they were gonna eat it all up. all of a sudden, all gone. im sure the more there on in one spot, the easier they are to get 'wasped'. i now have plenty of red and orange.
ill say that all the milkweeds are quite handsome, even common. its just that common is so darn aggresive that its not on my 'friend' list.

im still looking for A. purpurascens. i know its native here and very shy. but dont u worry, ill find one or my name isnt...
froggy

Still asking....

How do I tell the difference between Commmon and Showy Milkweed? They look alike too me.

Vera

I don't know showy milkweed from firsthand experience, but...

The photos on the web suggest that individual flowers are larger and perhaps more colorful, and the flower clusters seem smaller, compared to common milkweed. Looks like showy is the native species in Washington state.

But I wouldn't worry to much about the difference between the two species. They look to be ecological equivalents, and to behave similarly in the garden.

Thanks John,

Vera

I still have them....way slow spreading which is a good thing, but to save my soul can't figure out why no blooms last year after 2005 planting. Should they take 3 years to bloom? If this isn't the year than out they will go :D

Vera

If I had already planted milkweeds grown from seed I'd leave them in place. You have a small enough area that if you wanted to, you could eradicate milkweed pretty easily, or you could control it simply by watching where it comes up each spring and removing the ones you don't want. That is the advantage of a small garden - you can monitor each plant personally, and control the aggressive ones by hand pulling, digging, etc. I would, in future summers, limit the milkweed to maybe 5 or 6 stems. This will be wnough to support a couple of caterpillars, but won't occupy too much space in the garden. You will learn to recognize the new shoots in the spring, and you can pull them up with some of the rhizome that in underneath and i think you'll have OK control.

agree with ladyslppr - if you like them, keep them and teach them to behave!

I planted a couple several years ago - they were sold as swamp milkweed but I was later told I got scammed; they are common. Yes they spread; I have a good location for them to do that, but when they stray into the lawn or pop up where I don't want them I just mow them or whack them while edging. They are nowhere near as pesky as stuff like garlic mustard or goutweed.