{"id":3197,"date":"2020-10-05T07:41:58","date_gmt":"2020-10-05T15:41:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=3197"},"modified":"2020-10-05T07:41:58","modified_gmt":"2020-10-05T15:41:58","slug":"blue-stars-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/blue-stars-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Stars"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Monch<\/a>When I look out at the sea of asters in my front yard, it is hard to believe that there was a time when I had none. \u00a0In search of some fall color, 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\u2019 offspring. As it is, there are scores of them, and I truly believe that the seedlings have a 110 percent germination rate.<\/p>\n

Even my nemeses, the hordes of deer that meander through the yard, don\u2019t make a dent in the population.\u00a0 They find asters delicious and snack on the young plants regularly during the summer months. \u00a0When the deer do this to the lilies, I have to wait until the following year to see any blooms.\u00a0 Not so with asters.\u00a0 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 \u201ccircle of life\u201d phenomenon and the circle keeps expanding.<\/p>\n

As the result, my yard fills with many different shades of pink and pink\/purple asters in fall. \u00a0A few years ago I decided that I wanted a bit of blue to complement all the pink offered up by \u2018Alma\u2019s offspring. \u00a0I 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<\/p>\n

\u2018Monch\u2019 grows to about two feet tall, with gently arching stems and medium green oblong leaves. My original plant is now at least 3 feet across and covered with hundreds of the characteristic two-inch, daisy-like flowers in an appealing shade of sky blue. Vigor is one of \u2018Monch\u2019s strong suits, and mine is exceptionally vigorous, blooming for about a month in September and October.\u00a0 Several years ago I took a piece of it and planted it in my lower back<\/p>\n

garden. \u00a0The \u2018Monch\u2019 division experienced about five seconds of transplant shock and then produced a profusion of blooms. Now it is close to matching the cloud-like appearance of its parent. \u00a0Next year I will probably divide both the parent and the offspring plants.\u00a0 I may have to open the horticultural equivalent of a lemonade stand to distribute my surplus \u2018Monch\u2019 divisions.<\/p>\n

\u2018Monch\u2019 is quite youthful looking for a variety that is over 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<\/p>\n

Frikart was aiming for asters that were drought tolerant as well as beautiful. \u00a0To 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.<\/p>\n

Few breeders have crossed the two parent species since, but \u2018Monch\u2019 and its siblings acquired 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<\/p>\n

In 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\u2013one hundred years is an eternity. \u2018Monch\u2019 stays current by virtue of being both gorgeous and tough.<\/p>\n

My \u2018Monch\u2019 has thrived 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.<\/p>\n

Some local nurseries may offer end-of-season bargains on Frikart\u2019s asters. If not, order \u2018Monch\u2019 and the prolific \u2018Alma Potschke\u2019 for spring delivery from Bluestone Perennials, 7211 Middle Ridge Rd, Madison, OH 44057, (800) 852-5243, www.bluestoneperennials.com. Free print catalog. \"Monch<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I look out at the sea of asters in my front yard, it is hard to believe that there was a time when I had none. \u00a0In search of some fall color, 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 … 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":[4,6],"tags":[2387,264,970,634,2388,2390,2389],"class_list":["post-3197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","tag-aster-frikartii-monch","tag-asters","tag-daisy-family","tag-fall-flowers","tag-frikarts-aster-blue-flowers","tag-long-flowering-plants","tag-michaelmas-daisies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3197","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=3197"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3200,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3197\/revisions\/3200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}