Fall is for Aster

 

Before I started working at Big Bloomers if you asked me what flower I would first think of for fall it certainly would have been and probably still is the asters.

We currently have in stock 18 different kinds of aster.   Some are trailing, some are tall and gangly and some are low enough to be considered ground cover.  They are all very lovely and I am always very appreciative that they stick around all summer (especially now that I live in the south where the summers can be particularly and gruesomely hot and humid) and grace us with their beauty when most everything else in the garden is just about giving up the ghost.

Like the chrysanthemums, I will list them by height or growth habit and use the cultivar or common name without the species when possible.  No particular reason, I just think it is a bit less confusing not using all those Latin terms.

These five are the tallest.  With the tallest two being September Ruby and Winston Churchill.  Being 4’ and 3-4’ respectively.

September Ruby

Winston Churchill

Next is Lady in Black at 3’ tall.

Lady in Black

These next three are 2-1/2’ tall.

Monch Aster

Patricia Ballard

White Wood Aster

This next group are the intermediates.  Starting at 2’ are

Purple Dome

and

Lovely

Evergreen aster is about 20” tall.

and the next three are all around 1-1/2’ tall.

Wood’s Purple

Peter Harrison

Farmington

Next according to height would be the 15”

Royal Opal

Wood’s Light Blue

and

Wood’s Pink

Professor Kippenburg is just a big shorter, topping out at 14”.

Professor Kippenburg

Snow Flurry is a diminutive little groundcover aster that I love just for the very simple fact that it would rather be dry than wet.  Which I can do big time in my sand.  This one tops out at 6”.

Snow Flurry

and last but not least in a class all by itself is our very own Aster carolinianus.  This one is more of a viney, sprawling aster growing up to 10-12’ WHAT!  Yes 10-12 feet.  Its also fragrant to boot.  Don’t cut this one back since it comes back on the old woody vines and gets longer and longer and longer and longer ha.

Aster carolinianus

I thought this one deserved two pictures.