Hi Martha. I only have limited experience with this, all secondhand, but I thought I'd share. First of all, Asclepias exaltata is self incompatible. I found an article that said that self pollination produces a tiny amount of seeds on average. So really the first thing you should do is grow at least two genetically distinct plants.

Second, hand pollination is very effective compared to insect pollination in most species. Asclepias contains it's pollen in pollinia, and is the only non-Orchidaceae to do this. I found a how-to article on the web for you. It's got some videos to help. If you've got good vision and some patience, it should be pretty doable on a species like exaltata with such large flowers... I wouldn't want to have to do it on one of the small flowers species like incarnata. A friend of mine has tried several crosses by hand now and he only complained about the difficulty for a little while :)

https://butterflygardening.wordpress.com/2011/04/23/milkweed-pollination/

Thank you so much for the extremely helpful reply. I'll see how difficult the pollinating process seems. I have a patch that seems to be spreading via rhizomes, so I don't know if I have genetically different plants or not. I only have three or four "flowers" to work with, and they aren't all blooming simultaneously.

Martha

I think my flowers are too small! I'll stick to trying to hand-pollinate with a little artist brush. It's done fairly well in the past. And I'll encourage the bees and other pollinators as much as I can!

Well, I lucked out and I have 4 nice pods forming on three plants. So far no evidence of insect damage,,so just need to wait until the pods turn yellow or start to split. Everyone cross your fingers. Thanks.