Cait's Garden

Last year, about this time, I posted a photo of a scraggly little slip of  a plant I had just purchased called “Boltonia asteroides,” an American wildflower also called Wild Aster. The label said it would get to 4 feet tall and 3 feet wide and boy, they were not kidding. That plant shot up this year to impressive size. I was even able to give a clump to a friend in early spring. I can’t say enough good things about this plant. For much of the season, when it isn’t flowering, it looks like pale green tall grass. Then when it finally does bloom in September, well, you can see the photo. Amazing, isn’t it? I’ve read that, as with common asters, one can pinch these stems back in early July to keep the plant shorter later on. But I personally get a kick out of a flower that sees eye to eye with me. Definitely do not pass up the chance to own that scraggly looking, tiny pot of a wildflower in your garden center when you see it. I am so pleased with the performance of my native plants this year!

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I’ve blogged about this shrub before: “Sunshine Blue” Caryopteris (aka “Bluebeard”). Purchased from a mail-order nursery as a tiny seedling a few years back, it has become an anchor in my garden. Most of the summer, the show comes from its naturally rounded form and its dazzling yellow-green foliage. It’s always a bright spot in the yard. In September, we have an even more splendid show as periwinkle blue flowers blanket the shrub, making this a much-needed haven for bees and wasps in addition to a show-stopper. I adore this plant. Nothing in my garden provides this much gorgeousness from the time it leafs out in the spring until the leaves fall in the autumn. Highly recommended if you have a sunny, not too wet spot in your yard.

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It is September and the plant otherwise known as “Ironweed” that I purchased early this year is 3 feet tall and flowering as promised. As you can see by the photo, it’s much too pretty to be called Ironweed (its other name “Vernonia fasciculata” is more appropriate). Yet I do get perverse delight in calling lovely native plants by their often ungainly names, like Ironweed, Swamp Milkweed, and Joe Pye Weed. You note the trend there…the word “weed” pops up often. Thus proving the old adage that weeds are only flowers in undesirable places. I wouldn’t go that far. My native plants do not seem to be in the same league as the detestable dandelion. Yet a visitor to my garden recently pointed out, ‘I can tell it’s a native plant because it’s tall and stalky.’ Yes, native plants are often a bit lean and rangy. They definitely assert themselves in the landscape, which makes them charmingly American, I think. Maybe somewhere in an English cottage garden, there’s a British gardener coveting our “weeds.”

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