Plant of the Month: Seaside Goldenrod

Presented by Wendy Reistle
September 14, 2020

Botanical name: Solidago sempervirens
Common names: Seaside Goldenrod
Family: Asteraceae (Gentian)

[MUS—EASY AND FUN]

[WENDY] Hi! This is Wendy Reistle and our plant of the month is Solidago sempervirens or Seaside Goldenrod.

Seaside Goldenrod is a member of the Aster Family. It’s a perennial and it blooms from August to October, so right about now you should start looking for these wonderful plants to start blooming in our prairies and down by our beaches. The flower heads are dense deep yellow and often have a pyramid shape. The flowers on the Seaside Goldenrod are typically much larger than the other goldenrod species, so we’re lucky to have this plant.

It has a tight clump of narrow, evergreen basal leaves topped by the leafy erect or arching two-to-eight-foot flower stalks. The leaves on the plant are simple and alternate and they’re waxy to help the plant retain water and are an adaptation to the drying effects of salt spray. This is one reason that you will see this plant down on Galveston Island State Park near the beaches and the dunes. The leaves are also somewhat succulent.

This plant can easily be propagated through seeds. The seeds are ripe November to December, and, if you store them properly, you could potentially store goldenrod seeds for up to four years.

Seaside Goldenrod mainly grows east of the Mississippi from Canada to the Great Lakes region, south along the mid-Atlantic coast to Florida, and as far as west Texas. There is some disagreement about whether this plant is also found in Mexico. Some people think it’s a different species, and some people think it’s a hybrid of Seaside Goldenrod. But we’re lucky enough to have it here in Texas.

So, it’s found in the coastal marshes, dunes, and beaches. Again, it’s resistant to salt spray. So, in your garden it would do best in a sunny location with sandy soils.

It doesn’t spread by rhizomes, nor does it become invasive. And if you’re interested, you can pinch the growing tips in June for a more compact plant because, again, it does get up to eight feet tall. So, if you don’t want it to be that tall just clip it off in June.

Seaside Goldenrod also blooms about the same time as Ragweed, and it’s often incorrectly blamed for allergies or hay fever. The flowers are actually insect pollinated and not wind pollinated because the pollen is too heavy and sticky to become airborne. So, it’s not what’s causing your allergies. I thought for years that I was allergic to goldenrod but it’s actually Ragweed and not goldenrod, so I’m so happy to find out that I can plant this in my garden and not need to worry about sneezing.

Seaside Goldenrod has a very special value for wildlife. It provides food and shelter for many insects, birds, and small mammals. It’s a great nectar source for the migrating Monarchs because it’s blooming in the fall right at the time that they are migrating through Houston.

It attracts large numbers of native bees and also is an important food source for honeybees. I’ve seen a lot of different type of wasps and other insects also nectaring on this plant.

Another special value for wildlife is that the Seaside Goldenrods typically have predatory wasps or small insects that form galls on the plants, and that’s g-a-l-l. So, a gall is basically a swelling of the tissue with an egg inside of it. Its a little insect inside there and as the insect grows, the gall serves to protect it. But that gall also serves as a food source in the winter for birds such as chickadees and woodpeckers.

So, you can see how really important this plant is for wildlife in our area.

I hope you can secure one of the Seaside Goldenrods for your own backyard or for your prairie or for your house at the beach.

[MUS—AND THAT’S IT]