Species Name: Ascepias incarnata
Common Name: Swamp Milk Weed, Red Milkweed
Zone: 3 to 9
Light: Full Sun to Light
Shade
Soil Moisture: Wet to Moist
to Medium
Soil Types: Sand, Loam,
Clay, Saturated to Well -drained
Fertility: Medium to Rich
pH: 5 to 6.5
Bloom Time: June - July
Habit:
A clump forming perennial to 3 to 4 ft
tall. In early
to mid-summer flower stalks are topped by rounded pink or rose colored flower
clusters which attract swarms of pollinator insects. Leaves and stems emit a milky toxic sap that deter most
plant eaters such as deer and rabbits but the plant is a host for Monarch caterpillars
that can safely feed on the leaves.
Plants are easy to propagate and naturalize from seed. Like most milkweed the seed is dispersed
by wind on downy strands of silk.
Naturalized
plants are typically found in sunny wet areas of wet meadows, ditches, swamps,
shorelines, floodplains and bottomland forests but also in drier soils in old
fields and meadows.
Swamp
milkweed also makes for an attractive, hardy, deer resistant, garden plant.
Asclepias incarnate grows throughout
the eastern US.