We’ve had our first light frost a few weeks early. It was 29°F the morning of our Fall Plant Fair. Figures. As if I didn’t have enough going on that day.
At home I brought in what I could and covered a few things that I hadn’t finished enjoying for the season like my Passiflora coccinea (red passion flower) that just started flowering. Further in the garden the cold was enough to wither the tender Ipomoea alba (moonflower), blacken the Senna alata (popcorn plant), and collapse my various Celosia cultivars.
However, the late season perennials march on, slightly burned from the chilly air. Helianthus angustifolius (swamp sunflower) now has white halos on the rays, and Symphyotrichum georgianum (Georgia aster) is still standing tall, its purple frills a bit sagging.
One plant that made it through unscathed is Symphyotrichum drummondii, or Drummond’s aster. Its persistence is wonderful for all the insects that swarm this native. Fiery skippers, hornworm tachinid flies, bees, wasps, and various others dart from bloom to bloom underneath the waning sun in a vanilla sky. The dainty flowers—white rays with yellow disks that fade to a light pink and eventually brown—bob on their arching stems with all the activity.
Having these late season flowers are not only good for garden ecology but also for having late season color since it flowers for four-to-six weeks in October and November. And, in a world of confusing asters, I was happy to see the heart-shaped leaves at the base with long petioles that helped narrow it down to Drummond’s aster. As the foliage rises early in the spring, their shape offers a different texture amongst the finer grasses in the garden.
I give the plant a good cut back in early-to-mid spring when it still has its basal leaves. So many of our asters bulk up enough foliage in late winter that they are triggered into flowering by the short days. The reduction in foliage resets them for fall flowering and prevents ganglyness. In summer, the basal foliage disappears as the wiry stems elongate and produce sprays of side shoots that will eventually be covered with flowers.
I’m not 100% sure where my plant originated as it just appeared in my garden. I noticed an odd basal rosette of leaves that whispered aster. I was patient to see what it would become, and I was greatly rewarded. That’s not always the case with stowaways that find their way into the garden. My guess is it was a seed stowed away on a clump that I wild collected, or perhaps it sprung up from bird droppings. But, no matter how it found its way here, I’m happy it did.
My single clump has enlarged enough that I made four divisions off it this past spring. And, next spring I plan to repeat that task so that I and the creatures that share my garden have even more frothy flowers to enjoy.