White Heath Aster

White Heath Aster

White Heath Aster is a bushy, compact plant with many branched stems smothered in sprays of small, daisy-like white flowers. These sprays are so densely packed with blooms that the plant turns completely white as a result of the sheer number of flowers. The flowers are usually white, but they can be blue or pink…

Slender Blazing Star

Slender Blazing Star

Slender Blazing Star is an upright, clump-forming perennial with fluffy, purple flowers that bloom in late summer. It is best to plant it with slow-growing perennials or as a border plant, as it is a shorter, non-competitive plant. The long-blooming perennial Liatris, a slender blazing star or gayfeather, is native to eastern North America. It…

Wild Bergamot

Wild Bergamot

Wild Bergamot has rich globular heads of fragrant lilac-purple tubular blooms. The flower heads perch on a whorl of beautiful, pinkish bracts and bloom for weeks from mid-summer to early October. You may also flavour tea with the foliage of deep green, distinctively scented leaves. Wild bergamot is a drought-tolerant prairie perennial that spreads by…

Dense Blazing Star

Dense Blazing Star

Dense Blazing Star, Liatris spicata, has long-lasting purple wands of packed blooms that face all directions and bloom from the top of the stem down from midsummer to fall. The blooms resemble feather boas held upright on numerous spikes per plant. Although it lacks smell, Dense Blazing Star will please your other senses: the purple…

Caring for Poke Milkweed

Caring for Poke Milkweed

Although the milky sap is poisonous to humans, poke milkweed is an important nectar source for native bees, wasps, and other nectar-seeking insects. Unfortunately, non-native honey bees commonly get trapped in the stigmatic slits and die. Milkweeds are also the larval food source for monarch butterflies and their relatives, as well as a variety of…

Prairie Dock

Prairie Dock

Magnificent Silphium genus, it displays its bright yellow flowers on tall stems in late summer. Grows easily from seed, and is at home on a wide variety of soils, from moderately dry to moist. Excellent for tough clay soils. Birds love the seeds. Why it’s name? Silphium refers to a resin-producing shrub native to Greece. Terebinthinaceum means…

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