Adding Asters to Your Garden

Down The Garden Path Podcast

In this episode of Down the Garden Path, Joanne Shaw discusses how to extend the blooming season in your garden by adding asters.

Topics covered in this week's episode:

• Gardens don't have to stop blooming in September. We can extend the season to October and November.
• It’s very important to have because the pollinators still need something blooming.
• There are over 30 different species of asters.
• They have a huge variety of growing conditions, so there is an aster for whatever challenging growing condition you have.

Here are the five asters discussed:

• New England Aster, Symphyotrichum nova-angliae
  • The showiest, and likely the one you’re most familiar with
  • Native to most U.S. states and provinces
  • It is large and very showy, with a bright cozy blue flower with a yellow centre
  • The leaves on the stem are densely arranged on the stem
  • Prefer soil moist and they can grow in part shade
  • One of the larger varieties: up to six feet tall
• Whitewood Aster Eurybia divaricata
  • Delicate looking flowers
  • Grows in dry shade which means it makes a wonderful addition to the shade garden
  • Not super showy like most shade plants
  • Found in Ontario in dry, deciduous forests
  • So that's exactly what we want in our garden. If you have maple trees, pine trees, or something like that where the soil underneath is very dry and it's very shady, then this is something worth giving a try to
  • Only gets two to three feet tall
• Smooth Aster Symphyotrichum laeve
  • Similar to the New England Aster, although hence its name, it has leaves that are very smooth lavender and blue
  • Has a daisy-type flower with a yellow centre
  • Blooms from August to October
  • A huge pollinator for butterflies and a larvae host for the pearl crescent butterfly
• Heart leaf Aster Symphyotrichum cordifolium
  • Lavender to light blue
  • It is one of the latest ones to bloom and actually goes into November
  • An excellent pollinator for butterflies and bees at late in the season
  • Spreads slowly by rhizomes and it lightly self-seeds
  • Two to three feet tall, sandy to loam soil, and part shade to full shade
• Panicled Aster Symphyotrichum lanceolatum
  • This one blooms with sprays of white flowers, open spreading form, so also known as floppy
  • Best grown with other plants to kind of support it
  • If you already have a native garden, or if you're planting a native garden with other large tall plants, then this could be an addition if you want that
  • Prefers moist soil, but it likes full sun
• You can purchase seeds from Wildflower Farm and you can again, sprinkle them or plant them in your garden this fall
• You can also start them like you normally would do if you wanted them to grow in February/March under lights and go through that type of thing indoors and then put them out next year

Resources Mentioned in the Show:

Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden

Fall Mums and Asters

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Down the Garden Path Podcast

On Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designer Joanne Shaw discusses down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes. As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade. She does her best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and fellow landscape designer Matthew Dressing distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide.

Get your copy today on Amazon. Don't forget to check out Down the Garden Path on your favourite podcast app and subscribe! You can now catch the podcast on YouTube.