25 Common Milkweed seeds.

The plant is winter hardy in USDA zones 3–9; it has a preference for moist but well drained soils, but is tolerant of dry conditions and clay soils. It is ideal in semi-dry places where it can spread without presenting problems for other ornamental species.

More than 450 insects species feed on A. syriaca, including flies, beetles, ants, bees, wasps, and butterflies; it is an important food source for monarch butterfly caterpillars (Danaus plexippus).

Monarch Watch provides information on rearing monarchs and their host plants. Efforts to restore falling monarch butterfly populations by establishing butterfly gardens and monarch migratory "waystations" require particular attention to the target species' food preferences and population cycles, as well to the conditions needed to propagate and maintain their food plants.

In the northeastern United States, monarch reproduction peaks in late summer when most of the plant's leaves are old and tough. Plants that are mowed or cut back in June – August regrow rapidly from their rhizomes in time for peak monarch egg-laying, when reproducing female monarchs have a preference for quickly-growing A. syriaca shoots whose foliage is tender and soft.

A. syriaca is easily propagated by both seed and rhizome cuttings. The plant's seeds require a period of cold treatment (cold stratification) before they will germinate.

Grows on upland fields, prairies, pastures, glades, roadsides, wasteland, edges of woods, and open, disturbed places. This is the most commonly seen milkweed, especially in abandoned fields and waste places, where it is an early colonizer of disturbed soil.