Fall asters are a delightful addition to your garden. Their startling lavender petals with gold centers provide welcome color at a time when many flowers are done blooming. They are good to plant around your fall garden to attract beneficial insects. Monarch Butterflies use them as a nectar plant during their migration south for the winter.
Native Flowers
Fall asters are native from Texas and New Mexico all the way north to the Canadian border. They go east all the way to Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
Propagating Asters
Asters are perennial, semiwoody, forb type plants. They are propagated by cuttings in late spring. They can be propagated by planting the seeds 1/2 inch deep in your flower bed in the fall. The flowers will come up in the spring.
Sunlight
Asters prefer full sun but will grow in part day shade or bright dappled shade. They will get to one and one half to two and one half feet tall and spread out three inches. Be sure to plan for this when planting asters.
Waterwise
Asters are waterwise and hardy. They are a low to no care plant that provides stunning color in the fall. Asters suffer from no significant pest or disease problems. Like the bluebonnet, it prefers to have little care so do not pamper it or it will not do well.
Pruning
One thing you can do is cut the plants back to the base in late winter. If you shear the plants back by about a third in the summer, the aster will maintain a more compact form than if you let them grow without shearing them. If you are growing them for cutting flowers, do not shear in the summer.
Attracts Beneficials
Aster is attractive to some butterflies and other beneficial insect that eat aphids and other pests. Make sure you do not put any pesticides on it for this reason.
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