Over 400 species exist, although few species are in cultivation. Celebrate the joys of fall gardening with a great variety of Asters. Asters generally ask for sun to part shade and an average to dry location. They are quite drought tolerant once established and offer billows of daisy-like flowers from August into November. If you provide a trellis or post, this amazing Aster will scramble to the top.
Foliage is slightly grayish with narrow leaves.
Loads of tight, purplish pink buds pop open to reveal spidery rose-pink flowers that mature to lilac. It becomes fuller every year, and is happiest in a damp or regularly watered location. Cut back to the ground every spring and enjoy billows of fall color. NC Wildflower of the Year I first admired this species one fall growing intermixed with grasses and goldenrods on a dry, sunbaked embankment, where its slender wands of flowers danced in the breeze. In form, it is unlike most of our native asters.