Most milkweed species do best in full sunlight, so choose an open area with lots of sun. Once there are 4 true leaves on the seedlings (the seedlings will be approximately 3 inches tall), the plants can be transplanted into your garden. The seeds will take approximately 10 days to germinate. ![]() If the seedlings are too wet, fungal growth can occur and kill the seedlings. Keep the soil moist, but don't overdo it. It's best to keep the temperature at 26/24☌ day/night with a 16-hour photo phase. The soil is then fully saturated with water and placed either in a sunny window or directly under the grow lights they need a lot of light and warmth to germinate and grow. Fill the seedling trays approximately ¾ with potting soil (light, well-drained soils work best for most species) and scatter 3-4 seeds per cup and then cover the seeds with an additional ¼ inch of soil. If you have grow lights or a greenhouse, it is best to start your milkweed seeds indoors a couple of months before you are able to transplant them outdoors. To allow for natural stratification, sow collected seeds directly into a mulched bed in the fall and the seed will germinate the following spring. Store the seeds in a dark place (a refrigerator crisper works well) with a temperature of approximately 5☌ for a minimum of 3 weeks up to 3 months. Secondly, moisten the substrate with water and place the seeds in the cold soil. Peat has been found to produce the best results, in addition, peat/clay also work well. By stratifying, or subjecting seeds to a cold/moist environment for a short period of time, you simulate the conditions of a seed's natural break of dormancy that occurs when the seeds spend the winter in the ground. The most successful means of milkweed vernalization is through stratification. Many of the southern species, such as tropical milkweed, will grow without cold-treatment. Climate data used in creation of plant range maps is from PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University, using 30 year (1981-2010) annual "normals" at an 800 meter spatial resolution.Most seeds of temperate plants should be vernalized (cold treated) this ensures a higher germination rate than if seeds are sowed without this pre-treatment. Other general sources of information include Calflora, CNPS Manual of Vegetation Online, Jepson Flora Project, Las Pilitas, Theodore Payne, Tree of Life, The Xerces Society, and information provided by CNPS volunteer editors, with special thanks to Don Rideout. Sources of plant photos include CalPhotos, Wikimedia Commons, and independent plant photographers who have agreed to share their images with Calscape. ![]() Propogation from seed information provided by the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden from "Seed Propagation of Native California Plants" by Dara E. Plant observation data provided by the participants of the California Consortia of Herbaria, Sunset information provided by Jepson Flora Project. All text shown in the "About" section of these pages is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. It's very easy to grow in soils with with good drainage, even with no summer water. The plant is deciduous in winter and will sometimes die back to the ground before reviving in the Spring, and is often covered with aphids, so often best to plant in less prominent spots in a garden. Milkweed gardeners should be prepared for the plant to be eaten by Monarch caterpillars, but will be rewarded by the presence of beautiful Monarch Butterflies. ![]() Milkweeds in general are the larval host plants for Monarch butterflies, and this species is probably the single most important host plant for Monarch butterflies in California. This plant is common in the western United States and has the potential to become weedy. The fruits are smooth milkweed pods which split open to spill seeds along with plentiful silky hairs. It blooms in clusters of lavender or lavender-tinted white flowers which have five reflexed lobes that extend down away from the blossom. Narrowleaf milkweed or Mexican whorled milkweed is a flowering perennial sending up many thin, erect stems and bearing distinctive long pointed leaves which are very narrow and often whorled about the stem, giving the plant its common names. ![]() About Narrow Leaf Milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis) 88 Nurseries Carry This Plant
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