Swamp Milkweed
Asclepias incarnata
A native milkweed whose fragrant pink flowers draw butterflies all summer and whose leaves feed monarch caterpillars. It's made for rain gardens and pond edges, yet adapts to moist clay or loam in a border, and deer tend to leave it alone.
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- Mature size
- 4 × 2.5 ft
- 1.2 × 0.8 m, tall × wide
- Hardiness
- Zones 3a–9b
- USDA
- Sun
- Full sun to part shade
- Water
- Medium to wet
- Blooms
- Jul–Sep
Swamp Milkweed at its mature size
A mature Swamp Milkweed grows 3 to 5 feet tall and 2 to 3 feet wide.
Drawn to scale beside a 5 ft 9 in person. With VeraScape, you see it at this size in your own yard.
Typical mature size, unpruned. Sources: NC State Extension.
Through the year
What Swamp Milkweed looks like month by month in a typical zone 6–7 garden.
Below ground · Nov–Apr
Dies back to the ground.
In leaf · May–Jun
Upright branching stems with narrow lance-shaped green leaves, no flowers.
In flower · Jul–Aug
Domed clusters of small mauve-pink flowers topping every stem.
Fruit · Sep–Oct
Slender upright seed pods, green to tan, some split with silky white floss, leaves yellowing.
Photos
Growing Swamp Milkweed
- Grows well in
- The Northeast, the Southeast, the Midwest, and the Plains and Mountain West.
- Growth rate
- Medium
- Good for
- Rain garden, deer resistant, pollinators, and fragrant
- Leaves
- Dies back in winter
- Native to
- Eastern and Central North America
Spacing
VeraScape spaces plants so their grown canopies just touch. For Swamp Milkweed, that’s about 2.5 ft apart, center to center.
Place a row in your own yard and VeraScape spaces them at their mature width, so you can see whether they’ll crowd the walk.
See Swamp Milkweed in your yard before you dig
Visualize it at its true size, alongside the rest of your design.
Other milkweeds
Butterfly Weed
Swamp MilkweedAll drawn to the same scale.