PlantFiles: Bloodflower, Swallow-wort, Butterfly Weed, Mexican Milkweed, Scarlet Milkweed
Asclepias curassavica 'Silky Deep Red'

Very easy to grow, spreads easily, and gives seeds to share with others.
Host plant for Monarch Butterflies.

As far as I'm concerned the REASON to grow these is for the Butterflies......to spray them with pesticides is a shameful !
If you don't want caterpillars, don't plant them.

I purchased this plant a couple years ago from the nursery; their tag shows hardy in zones 7-10. Since I'm in zone 5b/6a, I grow the Butterfly Flower as an annual. I collect seed pods just before they start to split and let the pod dry, and do nothing until the following spring. By then the pod has split on its own (inside a container), and I have hundreds of seeds! I do not stratify the seeds. Around May 1st, when it's warm enough to start seeds outside in pots, I plant my seeds in the container they will be growing in, in a quality potting mix (not a seed starter mix), with some slow release fertilizer mixed in, keep them moist and in a sunny location, and off they go, producing 4' plants with continuous blooms, and ruby-throated hummers regularly coming around for the nectar. For me, this is a very easy plant to grown from seed and maintain through the growing season. In 2009 I'm going to try putting a few plants in the ground, mulching heavily for winter, and see what happens in Spring 2010.

The caterpillar is from the Monarch butterfly. Definitely veracious eater.

It is true that this plant is eaten by caterpillars everytime it blooms...but my positive experience is to cut the plant with the caterpillars on it, cut several extra stems also...put them in a very large plastic container with a net instead of a lid on top and within 10-14 days you get the treat of a liftetime. The caterpillars develop into crysallis then watch for the crysallis to turn dark...when that happens it won't be long before you see the creation of a beautiful butterfly. I have done this numerous times and even for my daughter's classroom...what a thrill! I definitely can put up with some stripped stems in order to enjoy the beauty of nature!!!!

I've been trying to get a specimen established in my yard for several years now, but it never seems to get much of a chance except become an elongated green stick. Every time it gets to the point where it blooms, there is a species of butterfly (or moth?) that comes and lays eggs which hatch into larvae and devour each and every leaf on the plant, drastically reducing its stamina and basically halting all growth for a period of time.

I have tried my best to remain vigilant as to when it's flowering, because I know that for the next several days afterward I will need to watch for eggs and/or larvae/caterpillars. If I see a batch of eggs laid near the flower, I spray them with a garden-safe insect spray. But often they hatch before I'm aware. Occasionally I manage to get rid of the larvae before they've done too much damage, but this is only a temporary reprieve, because as soon as the plant blooms again, the cycle repeats and it's only a matter of time before the caterpillars get all the leaves before I get all the caterpillars!

I occasionally see articles about this plant in the local paper or mentioned as a nice garden plant to attract butterflies, but I don't understand how anyone would want butterflies to come and have their larvae eat every single last leaf off the plant! Perhaps other gardeners' plants are more healthy/developed and are more able to withstand the caterpillars--perhaps being only partially devoured.

(The same thing holds true for my Dutchman's Pipe vine--Aristolochia elegans. Caterpillars eat every single last leaf off the vine before it can even grow to any size at all).