Aster is truly one of the shining stars of the garden. Actually the Greek word for star is asteri! Asters are a late summer bloomer offering a final burst of color to your landscape when most of your flowers have faded and leaves of your trees and shrubs are starting to drop. Taller varieties can be planted as a backdrop for the midsize, early bloomers like peonies and penstemon. Shorter varieties look nice at the feet of tall shasta daisies, sunflowers and garden phlox that will be blooming at the same time.
There are many benefits to planting asters in your garden. They make great additions to any late summer bouquet for the kitchen counter. The flowers can be used to dye fabrics. The best feature of asters however is that they are an important food source for many pollinators. If you want monarchs to flutter around your garden each year make sure you have an abundance of zinnia, milkweed and aster for them to feed on. The milkweed and asters should come back each season whereas the zinnias you will need to reseed each year.
There are over 250 species of aster to choose from so make sure you take home the right aster for the right planting site. They vary in height, color and leaf characteristic. They do best planted in full sun. They are an herbaceous perennial which means they will die back completely so you want to make sure that if you cut them back and discard them into your compost pile that you know where their roots are each spring so that you can give them the water they need to encourage them out of dormancy.
