Caring for milkweed

[Chademr]

I'm ordering 500 Northern Milkweed Seeds for $10 and I wonder how long it will take for them to grow and get established. I live in upstate New York and things get cold towards the end of October. Should I wait until spring next year before I plant my milkweed seeds? Is from now until the end of October enough time for them to start to grow? I also have a question about cutting back milkweed. How and how often do I do it? Is is necessary?

[wbl56]

I can't say as I have a great deal of experience (and frankly none with Northern Milkweed) but I think you might want to wait until spring to start your seeds. This past spring I started seeds of about 11 species, and there was quite a variation between species in growth rate. Swamp milkweed grew quite rapidly, whereas the A. hirtella I started from seed in May is still very small by comparison, even now in August. I presume Northern Milkweed is like most of the temperate milkweeds and needs to be vernalized before sowing. This means that before you plant the seeds, they should be refrigerated for 4 weeks or so, which puts you into October before the seeds would germinate. I think your best bet would be to wait until spring.

I counted back 14 weeks from the average date of last frost for my area. That is when the seeds went into the refrigerator. Four weeks later, I planted in seed starting medium, and grew them indoors for 8 weeks. I hardened them off for two weeks, and transplanted them outside about the time of the average date of last frost. Based on what I learned this year, I am probably going to do a couple of things differently next year. For starters, I will likely try not to be so anxious and will move my starting date later in the spring. This is so I can have the newly germinated seeds outside in natural light as much as possible. The seeds I started indoors under my grow lights (flourescent tubes) tended to be pretty spindly and I am hoping to avoid that next year by exposing them to as much natural light as possible. The other thing I am going to try is to keep some of the seedlings in deep plug pots (6" or 8" deep seed-starting pots) through the spring and summer and not transplant them until the fall. The deep pots will allow for good root development, and by planting in the fall I hope to avoid some of the problems I faced this year trying to keep things watered during the summer. I am told that the fall is a good time to transplant perennials, so I will give that a try next year, at least with some of my starts.

I hope this is of some help. Like I said at the beginning, I am no expert...I only know what has worked for me. Good luck!

[Chademr]

ok, thanks

[Teresa]

A good rule of thumb is when the milkweed sheds their seeds, that is when to plant. They need the winter to stratify. I plant all mine in the fall when the plant sheds them.

[Chademr]

ok

[James Price]

You have to know your seed source to know whether to plant in fall or spring. If this is fresh seed from this year, it should be marked or sold as "For 2007." If so, it is safe to plant in fall, but it won't sprout until spring (as others have pointed out, it needs a period of cold stratification).

If marked "For 2006," don't plant it now because it will germinate but the plants won't have nearly enough time to become established before frost kills them.

If it doesn't say when the seed was packaged for, play it safe and wait until spring. Just stick the seed in the refrigerator and plant it after the last frost date in your region (probably mid-March).

[James Price]

I'm sorry. In the last post I accidentally typed "after the last frost date... probably mid-March." I mean "mid-May." March is far too early to plant outdoors in upstate New York.