10/11/2026
Asters. There's never been a time in my gardening life when I haven't loved these plants. Their horticultural values (late-season color) are outpaced by their ecological ones (often keystone genera across their North American distributions). and I grow nearly 50 different taxa here at . I chose nine at random from my photo archives for today's post, along with a few comments about them (which I wrote before copying here and blew way past the character limit. I'll share the rest in my next newsletter, so sign up at the link in my bio if you're curious to read the full report):
1. Symphyotrichum cordifolium 'Little Carlow' (Little Carlow heartleaf aster). A popular garden selection with abundant flowers; photographed here in the plantings I designed for the display garden. Somewhat palatable to deer.
2. S. oblongifolium 'Raydon's Favorite' (Raydon's Favorite aromatic aster). A titanic form of this species from Tennessee, billowing into a blue cumulonimbus cloud in October. We use it in places as an herbaceous hedge to define apertures along paths and transitions in the garden. Named by Allen Bush after the plantsman Raydon Alexander, of San Antonio, Texas. Rarely browsed by deer.
3. S. turbinellum (blue prairie aster). We grow several forms of this plant, some from nurseries and others from our own wild-collected seed. Nearly transparent, wiry stems lurk in the garden mass until late September when waves of sky blue flowers overcome their forms. A larval host of pearl crescent butterflies. Somewhat palatable to deer when young.
(**full text in my next newsletter**; I hit the character limit!)
4. S. pilosum (frost aster).
5. S. sericeum (silky aster)
6. S. oblongifolium 'Dream of Beauty'
7. S. novae-angliae 'Purple Dome'
8. S. oolentangiense
9. S. laeve 'Climax'
