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I am always amazed by the prolific blossoms of native flowering plants, whatever the season. While neighbors are digging up dead plants planted in the spring and summer and replacing them with fall annuals, I can step out in my yard and snap photos of plants just coming into bloom. Mealy Blue Sage (Salvia farinacea) has for the most part shed most of its blossoms, and the main decision at this point is whether its nobler to trim off the deadheads in hope of a late and mild winter, or to cut the patch back to its roots, to sleep through the coming months and dream of a lush spring, perhaps with musical accompaniment by Vivaldi. As one blue flower fades, another plant’s star is on the rise, in this case the Fall Aster (Symphiotricum oblongifolium), which has begun its seasonal splash of color, attracting bees and butterflies to harvest its nectar and spread its pollen.
While many garden flowers are showing signs of fading into decay, these little stars are bursting into bright splashes of color, especially welcome to nature’s pollinators and nectar feeders. Typically ranging in hues of blue or purple, the Fall Aster is a larval host for the Pearl Crescent butterfly (Paycides thares). In my yard, the Fall Asters are planted in two small masses of approximately 8 to 10 square feet. One is in the front acting as a border between my driveway and the neighbors, and the other is in the backyard where it provides a contrasting color against a cedar fence backdrop.
During the spring and summer, these asters are somewhat dull, showing only green foliage. Come September, usually just after you begin to wonder whether they are getting enough sunlight, they burst into purple ray flowers with yellow centers around which buzz bees and small butterflies. Be careful not to get overanxious and cut them back at the end of summer – you will miss out if you do. In fact, you need spend little time on maintenance of these once they are established. If you wait until the plants have died back for the winter and trim down to the woody stems, they should be fine. Drought tolerant once established, Symphyotricum oblongifolium can tolerate both dry to moist, well drained soil, which suggests that is not a candidate for the rain garden. However, it can tolerate a variety of soil types, and has been suggested for use as a ground cover.
Another “late” bloomer, in the sense that they bloom towards the end of the calendar year instead of in the spring, is Ageratina havanensis, whose misty white blossoms have recently begun to fill out. Havana snakeroot, white mistflower, fragrant mistflower, Boneset, Thoroughwort – this plant is known by several common names and is frequented by a wide variety of insects, from bees to butterflies to wasps. So far, though, it hasn’t attracted many butterflies.
This year seems not to be a bumper crop for butterflies, even though I’ve counted at least a half dozen Monarch larva in my milkweeds, and the latter half of October saw several Monarchs and Queens visiting the Gregg’s Mistflower patch almost daily. Still, they seem sparse compared with previous years. The Gregg’s mistflowers were recently crawling with a larva with which I am unfamiliar (see slideshow below), although the likeliest suspect would be Rawson’s Metalmark butterfly (Calephelis rawsoni) for which it is noted as a larval host.
Even before the recent rains, Rock Rose (Pavonia lasiopetalia) was entering into a new cycle of blooms, which became several blooms after the rain. The Blackfoot Daisy (Melampodium leucanthum) continue to do well with no extra water, though it will be interesting to see what their reaction will be to the several inches of rain received locally the previous weekend. Crossvine (Bignonia capreolata) and Alamo Vine seemed to have finished blooming for the year, but were observed with some new blooms following the rains. Skeletonleaf Goldeneye, (Viguiera stenuloba), has also been seen in bloom, and Turk’s Cap (Malvaviscus arboreous) continues to blossom even though many of its earlier flowers have gone to produce their fruit that I somewhat sloppily refer to as “rose hips” instead of manzanillas, which is one of the common names (“little apples” in Spanish). Gaura species are still pushing out blossoms and of course, Autumn Sage (Salvia greggii) continues to impress with robust blooms.
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**ARCHIVED POST AUTHOR: rkamper
