SHOWIEST Milkweed Flowers❓🌸😍

Two Native Milkweed Options with Beautiful Blooms

April 26, 2025

Greetings Good GROWer,

Spring is in the air as warm temps and rain have turned the garden from winter brown to forest green…While we won’t (shouldn’t) see our first Minnesota monarch this weekend, I expect to see mourning cloaks and other pollinators (that overwinter here) basking in the spring sun. ☀️

Welcome back to another weekend edition of milkweed madness. We're getting towards the end of our spring milkweed fling and I hope you've discovered a few milky possibilities for your garden in 2025.

Today, I'll be sharing two milkweed varieties with some of the prettiest blooms you'll see in the asclepias genus...will you agree? 👀

Unfortunately, one of these species was our biggest milkweed disappointment last season, and never quite took off for reasons beyond our control. More details after a quick word from today’s newsletter sponsor 🐶

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Monarch Migration UPDATE

The first monarchs have arrived just one state below us in Iowa, but our Minnesota milkweed is still hiding under ground…if the current long-range forecast holds, we could see our first monarchs here by mid-may again. Hopefully, we’ll have more milkweed than we did for the first spring monarch last season…😢


MM '25:  Showy and Redring Milkweed


Over the years we've grown Asclepias speciosa (showy milkweed) in our yard, but it has never bloomed. I'm fairly sure it was the dryer soil conditions (on the south side of our house) which our common milkweed thrived in, but showy did not.

We are still waiting to see if showy milkweed thrives in our new garden this season in a different microclimate:

Asclepias Speciosa (Showy Milkweed) <<photos, info, and where to buy)

Of course, we’ll post updates and let you know how showy grows this seasons…

This other milkweed species never survived winter in our old butterfly garden, but has come back two years straight in our new garden…

Asclepias variegata (redring milkweed) is just out of our USDA growing zone in Minnesota, but it's native to the north in Ontario, Canada. 🇨🇦 This is why I look at native zones as guidelines and not hard set rules. (Sometimes they just don't seem to make sense, especially when you consider our fast-changing climate.)

Last spring, after we fenced the yard to protect our milkweed from rab-brats 🌿🐇 we thought we’d have mature redring milkweed plants with beautiful blooms but...nature had other plans. 🤷🏽‍♂️

We were excited (and dismayed) to see the first monarch of the season on May 10 peppering our tiny plants that were nowhere near ready for this small monarch army:

To add insult to injury, once the plants recovered from the monarchs’ YES Mow May, a small rabbit penetrated our de-fences-es and continued where the caterpillars left off. So the redring survived, but never really thrived…

This weekend, we’re working on stabilizing the rabbit fence and then hoping the first monarchs arrive later, so we don’t get an early egg dumping again.

To distract the rabbits, we also planted white dutch clover in our front and back yard, so they they can munch away on that until their little rabbit hearts are content.🍀🐰

I'll be sure to post updates on redring and hope for a better growing season in 2025.

A. variegata is reported by many gardeners as one of the most difficult milkweed species to grow, but more people have reported more success starting it from rhizomes.

Asclepias Variegata (Redring Milkweed) ⬅️ photos, info, and where to buy)


🗣️ Last Chance for YOUR Opinion ⌛️🤔

If you haven’t shared your opinion about the future of this newsletter, please take this quick survey to help us make sure we’re on the right track….the survey will be closed this week. Thanks in advance!

We’re making some changes to this newsletter and I want to make sure we’re on the right track and you’re reading about the things that interest you and help with your gardening goals.

Please take this short poll and help shape the future of your GROW the Migration newsletter:

GROW The Migration POLL ⬅️ (it will only take a few minutes and help improve future newsletters…thanks in advance!)


Coming Up Next?

Growing Milkweed in Raised Beds and Containers…

Until Next time,

Tony your Butterfly Guide 🦋


PS…For Your Garden