There was a time when I had no asters in my front garden. Then I planted one small pot of tall, pink-flowered \u2018Alma Potschke\u2019 asters. \u2018Alma\u2019 prospered\u2014so much so that now, if I didn\u2019t pull out the seedlings every year, I would have hundreds of \u2018Alma Potschke\u2019offspring. Not only do I pull out the seedlings, but the deer crop the young plants regularly during the summer months. Each and every deer-besieged \u2018Alma\u2019 responds by branching out and producing more flowers, which ultimately produce more seeds, which in turn germinate and become next year\u2019s seedlings. It\u2019s a circle of life kind of thing and the circle that keeps expanding.
\nAs the result, my yard fills with pink asters in fall. A few years ago I decided that I wanted a bit of blue to complement the many shades of pink offered up by \u2018Alma\u2019s offspring. I went out and purchased one of the most popular blue-flowered asters, \u2018Monch\u2019, a hybrid of Frikart\u2019s aster, or, more properly, Aster x frikartii \u2018Monch\u2019.
\n\u2018Monch\u2019 grows to about 2 feet tall or more, with gently arching stems and medium green oblong leaves. My plant is now at least 3 feet across and covered with hundreds of the characteristic 2-inch, blue daisy-like flowers. Vigor is one of \u2018Monch\u2019s strong suits and mine is exceptionally vigorous, blooming for about a month in September and October. Earlier this year, I took a piece of it and planted it in my lower back garden. The \u2018Monch\u2019 division experienced about five seconds of transplant shock and then produced a profusion of blooms. I expect by next year it will rival the cloud-like appearance of its parent. In the meantime, I will be looking for new places to transplant the divisions that I will make next spring.
\n\u2018Monch\u2019 is quite youthful looking for a plant that is nearly one hundred years old. Introduced in 1918 by Swiss nurseryman and plant breeder Karl Ludwig Frikart, it was named for a mountain in the Alps. English garden writer Val Bourne described \u2018Monch\u2019 as \u201cthe longest flowering aster [ever] bred.\u201d
\nFrikart was aiming for asters that were drought tolerant as well as beautiful. To achieve that goal, he crossed two tolerant species, both native to mountainous regions. One was the blue-flowered Italian aster or Aster amellus, native to central and southeastern Europe; the other a pink-flowered Himalayan species, Thompson\u2019s aster, or Aster thompsonii. The crosses produced four offspring that Frikart thought good enough to market. The varieties were \u2018Monch,\u2019 \u2018Wonder of Staffa,\u2019 \u2018Eiger\u2019 and \u2018Jungfrau.\u2019 \u2018Wonder of Staffa\u2019 is very similar to \u2018Monch\u2019 in flower color and configuration. My trusty 1947 edition of the Wayside Gardens catalog offers it and it is still with us. \u2018Jungfrau\u2019 is more compact and probably better suited to smaller gardens or even container culture. \u2018Eiger\u2019 is probably much like its siblings, but it seems to have almost disappeared from commerce.
\nFew breeders have crossed the two parent species since, but \u2018Monch\u2019 and its siblings got a lovely half sister in 1964 when English breeder Alan Bloom crossed varieties of the Thompson\u2019s and Italian asters to produce the pinkish-purple \u2018Flora\u2019s Delight.\u2019
\nIn the history of horticulture, one hundred years is not much, but in the history of commercial horticulture\u2014especially in our current amped-up, social media-driven environment where fads succeed each other with lightening speed–one hundred years is an eternity. \u2018Monch\u2019 has to be both tough and fashionable to stay current.
\nMy \u2018Monch\u2019 has survived nicely for several years in heavy clay soil, albeit amended with organic material. The Frikart\u2019s asters in general prefer soil that is better drained and closer to the mountain environments favored by their parent species. If you are planting in areas with heavy clay, mix lots of compost, grit or sand with the loose soil at the bottom of the planting hole. Situate the plants in a sunny location and they will do the rest. It\u2019s best to plant and divide in spring, though if someone offers you a \u2018Monch\u2019 or \u2018Wonder of Staffa\u2019 division in the next two weeks, take it and install it promptly. You will have plenty of blooms next fall.
\nSome local nurseries may offer end-of-season bargains on Frikart\u2019s asters. If not, order \u2018Monch\u2019 from White Flower Farm, P.O. Box 50, Route 63, Litchfield, Connecticut 06759, (800) 420-2852, www.whiteflowerfarm.com. Free catalog. \u2018Wonder of Staffa\u2019 is available from Bluestone Perennials, 7211 Middle Ridge Rd, Madison, OH 44057, (800) 852-5243, www.bluestoneperennials.com. Free catalog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There was a time when I had no asters in my front garden. Then I planted one small pot of tall, pink-flowered \u2018Alma Potschke\u2019 asters. \u2018Alma\u2019 prospered\u2014so much so that now, if I didn\u2019t pull out the seedlings every year, I would have hundreds of \u2018Alma Potschke\u2019offspring. Not only do I pull out the seedlings, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1178,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[265,971,969,264,970,634,267,972,968,238,448],"class_list":["post-1169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","tag-alma-potschke","tag-wonder-of-staffa","tag-aster-monch","tag-asters","tag-daisy-family","tag-fall-flowers","tag-fall-gardening","tag-frikart","tag-frikarts-aster","tag-garden-history","tag-native-plants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1169"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1179,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169\/revisions\/1179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}