Whorled Milkweed blooms later than most milkweeds and often into September. This small milkweed spreads to form attractive drifts topped with small umbels of white flowers, attractive to many pollinators including Monarch butterflies …
Whorled Milkweed (Asclepias verticillata) blooms later than most milkweeds and often into September. This small milkweed spreads by rhizome to form attractive drifts topped with small umbels of white flowers. Attractive to many pollinators including butterflies, Whorled Milkweed is also a host plant for the Monarch butterfly. Thin whorled leaves grant a delicate texture that combines well with other plants of lower stature in an interplanted design or a rock garden. Sandy and gravelly well-drained soils are preferred, and this plant also appreciates a more open space. It will not complete with taller, dominant plants. Slender seed pods are formed later in the season and the leaves turn to yellow and orange. Both of these features provide interest well into autumn. Resistant to both deer and rabbit, this milkweed is poisonous to livestock.
Native plants can be grown outside of their native range in the appropriate growing conditions. This map shows the native range, as well as the introduced range, of this species.
Plant Shipping Rates: Plant orders of $50.00 and under, add $9.95 shipping charge. Plant orders over $50.00, add 18% of the total plant cost.
We ship plants in the spring, and in the fall, during our plant-shipping periods. Fall plant-shipping begins on September 11, 2023, and the last day to order plants for fall shipment is October 1, 2023.
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GENERAL SHIPPING INFORMATION
We are not able to combine a new order with a previous order, for shipping.
Plants and Seeds are shipped separately and have different shipping rates.
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RESTRICTIONS
Plants and Seeds are shipped within the contiguous United States, only.
Due to agricultural restrictions we no longer ship to the following states: Idaho, Utah.
How fast and aggressive does this spread? I was thinking of adding it to a new bed with white indigo, yellow indigo, dwarf indigo, and rudbekia (black eyed susan), but don't want it to crowd out what is already there.
Whorled milkweed will spread to the extent that it is easy for it to do so. In other words, it is a spreader, but it is not highly competitive. It needs open space. If it is situated in a dense planting of larger plants it most likely will not be able to outcompete them. It may have initial years where it is more plentiful, as it rallies to gain hold, but then will recede in the face of stiff competition.
It can depend somewhat upon how favorable the conditions are for one plant species vs another. For whorlded milkweed, fast draining, low nutrient sites are favored.
Whorled milkweed is fast growing, so if your Indigo plants are new and small, the Whorled could spread quickly among them. Eventually though, the Indigo should prevail.
It is almost May 1st here in Illinois and my whorled milkweed has yet to emerge. Is it dead?
Milkweeds – even Common Milkweed, which blooms earlier – are slow to emerge in spring. Most likely your Whorled Milkweed is fine and will emerge by late May.
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