{"id":1401,"date":"2015-08-03T04:28:44","date_gmt":"2015-08-03T12:28:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=1401"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:31:57","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:31:57","slug":"dr-stokes-aster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/dr-stokes-aster\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Stokes’ Aster"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Stokesia--Stars<\/a>
Stokesia–Stars of the mid-summer garden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pity the poor common chicory or Cichorium intybus, a Mediterranean native that has made itself at home all over the United States, gracing roadsides, field edges and other untended spaces.\u00a0 The semi-double daisy flowers are the most beautiful shade of sky-blue, but the stems are gangly and scraggly, with rough-looking toothed leaves.\u00a0 On top of all that, chicory blooms fold up and die the minute that you pick them, so unless you can arrange flowers at the speed of light and photograph the arrangement immediately, there is no use even snipping the stems.\u00a0 You can dig the roots to dry, grind up and use as a coffee additive, but doing so will deprive you of the fabulous, short-lived flowers.\u00a0 The ephemeral quality of chicory\u2019s beauty is enough to drive a philosophical gardener mad.<\/p>\n

There is, however, at least a partial remedy for this madness, and it comes to us courtesy of an early summer-blooming plant commonly known as Stokes aster.\u00a0 Unlike its close relative, chicory, Stokes aster is native to the American Southeast, where it favors damp areas and pine barrens.\u00a0 The flowers are fluffier\u2014more like cornflowers or mums in appearance than daisies\u2014but some Stokes aster or Stokesia laevis varieties feature blooms in the same heart-stopping shade of blue as chicory.\u00a0 All Stokesias boast handsome-looking stems and elongated dark green leaves.\u00a0 The cut flowers also last well in a vase.<\/p>\n

Stokes aster is inextricably linked in garden history to another beautiful plant, foxglove or digitalis.\u00a0 Back in the freewheeling eighteenth century, an English physician\/botanist named Jonathan Stokes became interested in the medicinal properties of digitalis.\u00a0 He conducted clinical trials on the drug and contributed to a groundbreaking book on the subject by fellow physician\/botanist William Withering.\u00a0 The book, An Account of the Foxglove and its Medical Uses<\/i>, published in 1785, helped spread the word about digitalis\u2019 efficacy for the treatment of heart failure.\u00a0 While engaged in medicine, scholarship and botany, Stokes also became a member of London\u2019s Linnaean Society, established to promulgate the work and philosophy of Carolus Linnaeus, father of modern plant taxonomy.\u00a0 In honor of Stokes contributions to botany and science, the genus Stokesia was named for him.<\/p>\n

All kinds of plant-world luminaries are connected to Stokes asters.\u00a0 One of the old favorite varieties, \u2018Klaus Jelitto\u2019 is named for a well-loved twentieth century perennial plant breeder and seedsman.\u00a0 At eighteen inches tall and wide, \u2018Klaus\u2019 sports soft blue flowers atop erect stems.\u00a0 The whimsical-sounding \u2018Peachie\u2019s Pick\u2019 originated as a chance seedling in a Mississippi garden owned by an avid gardener named Peachie Saxon. The Mississippi-born variety tops out at about two feet tall, with large, deep blue flowers.\u00a0 Like all happy Stokesias, \u2018Peachie\u2019s Pick\u2019 forms nice-sized clumps within a few years.\u00a0 Deadheading helps prolong the bloom cycle, but if you leave a few heads to fend for themselves in mid-summer, the plants may self-seed nicely.\u00a0 I have no idea who \u201cMel\u201d is or was, but I am longing to try \u2018Mel\u2019s Blue\u2019, billed by one retailer as the bluest blue-flowered Stokesia.\u00a0 It would be a nice complement to \u2018Honeysong Purple\u2019, which is supposedly the \u201cpurplest\u201d purple-flowered type.<\/p>\n

\u2018Mary Gregory\u2019 is something a bit different.\u00a0 Named for an avid Columbia, South Carolina gardener, and introduced in 1998 by North Carolina\u2019s Niche Gardens, \u2018Mary Gregory\u2019 has soft yellow flowers and stems that are somewhat less erect than those of most blue-purple-flowered varieties.\u00a0 Those stems arch outwards and upwards to two-feet tall, with plants expanding to about eighteen inches wide.\u00a0 \u2018Mary\u2019 would be a great date for \u2018Klaus\u2019 or \u2018Mel\u2019 or even \u2018Peachie\u2019, providing neat color contrast in the garden.\u00a0 I may just move my \u2018Mary\u2019, which is only doing middling well in a lightly shaded spot, to a happier location next to my new \u2018Blue Danube\u2019, a tall specimen, with slightly lax stems and medium blue flowers.<\/p>\n

Though not named for anyone in particular, little \u2018Elf\u2019 is perfect for small spaces and container gardens.\u00a0 As hardy as its other Stokesia laevis relatives, \u2018Elf\u2019 grows only eight inches tall by twelve inches wide.\u00a0 The two-inch, blue-purple flowers are borne in large numbers and have the same keeping qualities as those of other Stokesias.\u00a0 Another shorter variety is white-flowered \u2018Divinity\u2019, bred in Florida and topping out at twelve inches tall.\u00a0 Since it is sweet and southern, it reminds me a little of divinity fudge, a traditional southern candy that derives its pale color from a quantity of egg whites and sugar.\u00a0 \u2018Divinity\u2019 the Stokesia is almost certainly less fattening than divinity fudge.\u00a0 However, a balanced life might easily include both.<\/p>\n

Despite the vogue for smaller plants, some gardeners still need something a little taller for the middle to back of the border.\u00a0 For them there is \u2018Omega Skyrocket\u2019, towering over other Stokesias at up to three feet tall.\u00a0 The flowers are proportionally large, two to three inches of blue-purple glory.<\/p>\n

Chicory is stunning left to its own devices and allowed to grow, untroubled, in places that suit it.\u00a0 Unexpected chicory sightings are a revelation in those parts of cities, suburbs and the countryside that writers used to call \u201cwaste places.\u201d\u00a0 In your garden, get the same color effect from Dr. Stokes\u2019 asters.\u00a0 Pair them with some yellow foxglove or Digitalis grandiflora and you will create a real tribute to the good doctor.<\/p>\n

For an excellent mail order selection, try Niche Gardens, 1111 Dawson Road, Chapel Hill, NC 27516, (919) 967-0078, www.nichegardens.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Stokesia–Stars of the mid-summer garden<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pity the poor common chicory or Cichorium intybus, a Mediterranean native that has made itself at home all over the United States, gracing roadsides, field edges and other untended spaces.\u00a0 The semi-double daisy flowers are the most beautiful shade of sky-blue, but the stems are gangly and scraggly, with rough-looking toothed leaves.\u00a0 On top of … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[1171,970,733,1235,908,706,1233,1234],"class_list":["post-1401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-summer","tag-compositae-family","tag-daisy-family","tag-digitalis","tag-joanathan-stokes","tag-mid-summer-perennials","tag-purple-flowers","tag-stokes-aster","tag-stokesia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1401","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=1401"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1403,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1401\/revisions\/1403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}