A family member added several Asclepias tuberosa plants to the south side of her house this year.
They were planted as 2” plugs. The soil is clay, the plants get full sun, everything in that garden is watered with a soaker hose that lies beneath the mulch. The plants have not been fertilized and no herbicide or pesticide has been applied. All of these new milkweed plants have developed leaf curl to one degree or another in the month or so since they were planted. The plants nearby - some small bushes and a few small flowering plants - look fine And are growing well.
I uncurled the leaves and checked for aphids and found a very few black ones on a couple of the plants but not on the others. I removed the aphids with sprayed water. I did find some black smudge on the bottom of one leaf but nothing else. Aside from the leaf curl on the newer growth most of the other, older leaves seem ok.
My questions are these - could this be just aphid damage (there don’t seem to be enough of them to cause this) or is there another potential issue? Perhaps the heavy clay content? Would it be beneficial to snip the affected leaves and dispose of them or will that stress the plants even more? other suggestions?
