The tall asters that dominate my front garden used to be known to dirt gardeners and botanists alike as \u201casters.\u201d\u00a0 Botanists and plant taxonomists now call them Symphyotrichum, a name that makes simple plants sound complicated and inaccessible.\u00a0 Everyone else still calls them asters.\u00a0 I hope the plant taxonomists will take the hint and rescind the name change.<\/p>\n
No matter what you call them, my asters, a variety called \u2018Andenken an Alma Potschke\u2019 (usually shortened to the somewhat more euphonious \u2018Alma Potschke\u2019), are beautiful.\u00a0 This is not because of me.\u00a0 All I did was plant the first one years ago.\u00a0 It and its descendents self-seeded with wild abandon and now there are scores of them.<\/p>\n
When I look out at the swathes of \u2018Alma Potschke\u2019, I see genetic diversity in all its glory.\u00a0 The original plant had rose pink flowers.\u00a0 Many of the offspring have them as well.\u00a0 Others feature blooms in shades ranging from pale pink to nearly purple.\u00a0 Most are similar in height\u2014about three to four feet tall\u2014but that is because I chop them back by one third in early summer to keep them medium tall and floriferous rather than gargantuan and spindly.<\/p>\n
I love the variations and even though asters are alarmingly prolific, with growth habits that are at odds with garden discipline, I only grub out enough seedlings to keep them from taking over.<\/p>\n
The bees, butterflies and skippers love the asters and when I stand in the plants\u2019 midst, I feel the insects\u2019 life and vitality surging around me.\u00a0 And it will live on, because when the local beekeeper harvests his fall flower honey, my asters will be part of the flavor mix.<\/p>\n
This is why I garden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The tall asters that dominate my front garden used to be known to dirt gardeners and botanists alike as \u201casters.\u201d\u00a0 Botanists and plant taxonomists now call them Symphyotrichum, a name that makes simple plants sound complicated and inaccessible.\u00a0 Everyone else still calls them asters.\u00a0 I hope the plant taxonomists will take the hint and rescind … 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":[265,264,389,267,388,227,390],"class_list":["post-604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","tag-alma-potschke","tag-asters","tag-bees","tag-fall-gardening","tag-genetic-diversity","tag-pollinators","tag-symphyotrichum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604","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=604"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1476,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604\/revisions\/1476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}