My Swamp Milkweed

Could anyone tell me what could be wrong with my swamp milkweed, it was doing fine I transplanted it to this place in the spring and it grew very tall and hardy then all of a sudden this.

Plant ID forum is probably not the best place to ask this. You might get more eyes on it if you put it in Ask-a-Dave's-Gardener Discussion Forum.

Since it seems to not have gone to seed yet, something is preventing your plant from drinking up water.

1. Your plant either got too hot and should revive when the sun goes down and it gets cooler.
2. It ran out of water and needs some.
3. It got too much water and the roots are rotting and unable to drink up the water now even though the soil is wet.
4. Some underground vermin ate your roots and left your plant to die.

I’m wondering what would be eating it as it is a swamp milkweed meaning I thought it could take a lot of water. It is in a raised bed on the east side of our house and we have recently gotten a lot of rain.
But my other plants are thriving from the good rain we’ve gotten.

I am no expert on milkweeds. I often admire them and enjoy all the various flowers on them esp if they have pretty cats on them. Another 1 of those plants that I could obsess about collecting the different varieties of them.

The list I gave you is for all plants that suddenly wilt and start to get yellow leaves. I think they probably apply to milkweeds too.

I just googled it and up came
"Both overwatering and underwatering will be detrimental to the health of your Swamp milkweed, but overwatering is a far more common issue. When this species receives too much water, its stems and leaves may begin to wilt and turn from green to yellow."

Do you have moles where you are? Or are they called voles?

LOL I just looked up if moles, voles or gophers eat milkweed roots. I have never had any of these rodents in my garden. I found out moles eat meat not roots. Voles are into grass. So that leaves gophers but I could not find any mention if they are attracted or not attracted to either so probably not responsible.

Neither of them we do have a little chipmunk I’ve been noticing lately, he likes to eat the apples that fall off of our tree.
I wonder if its that they’ve gotten too much water, a couple of weeks ago we got about 3 inches of rain which we did need.

If the soil is not super wet or dried out and it is not real hot where the plant is and no gophers, I think your roots must have rotted or maybe something burned them. Have you fertilized the plant? Has a dog or cat peed on it? Have you used any chemicals in the grass near it or another plant near it? Any weed killers?

Years ago I had a huge fruit-bearing grapefruit tree in my backyard not far from the fence line. 1 day it was gorgeous and in full flower, the next it was dead with dry crackling leaves. My neighbor had used weed killer on her yard and it migrated under the fence in the soil and murdered my tree.

Perhaps you can gently dig down on 1 narrow part of the plant's side in the dirt a few inches from the main stem and see if you can get a glimpse of the roots. If they are whitish and plump they are good. If you cannot see any or of they look stringy and dark with no plumpness they are probably down for the count

Chipmunks do not dwell underground eating roots for dinner.

You know the season is about over especially where you are. I might cut it down to just above the ground and see if it resprouts in spring.

Well my milkweed has grown newer green leaves to replace the one that looked poorly and those leaves actually dried up don’t know what it was.
But the newer stalks have gotten pods on them, don’t remember seeing flowers but there are seed pods which I was hoping to get.

It's way too close to the house, I can tell you that.

Yeah I had it out in the middle of my yard in a flower bed and it didn’t do well there actually I thought I lost it then this one came up I think from a dropped seed, so I figured it might not be good out there.
Also it gets very tall and I figured it may need something to prop it on.