Butterfly weed is an excellent pollinator plant that attracts lots of bees, butterflies, wasps, and flies.  It is a host plant for monarch butterflies, but I have found that mama monarchs don't lay eggs on it as much as other milkweed species.  It's still a great addition to any sunny garden with its bright orange flowers.  It tends to be a shrubby plant, growing out more than up.  
 
I have both first and second year plants of this species.  The second year plants should bloom this year.