Symphyotrichum pilosum syn. Aster pilosa (Frost Aster)

Description

Do you want to attract bees, birds and butterflies to your garden but haven’t found anything that will live in your soil? Plant Frost Aster (Symphyotrichum pilosum). This beautiful native perennial graces interstate shoulders,construction sites, and abandoned fields with beautiful flowers in the fall and often again in May. Its flowers attract bees and butterflies and its seeds attract songbirds. It thrives in dry sand, compacted clay, and even rubble.Driving home from a plant sale one May, I noticed a Frost Aster (Symphyotrichum pilosum) covered in blooms. I had never seen Asters blooming in the Spring, so I looked for a place to pull over and walked in the ditch to check it out. I took a piece of it, stuffed it into some aged pine bark in the back of my truck, and forgot about it. A few days later, I remembered it. I was sure that it was dead, but when I fished it out of the bark, I found that it had not only lived but had grown. was growing. ..but it wasn’t. and drove back home, where I forget all about it for a few days. I was sure it was dead, bu I Plant in sun or very light shade, in average to dry soil. I have seen where deer have nibbled it a little. Apparently, they didn’t like it because they didn’t eat much. it blooms profusely in the fall and again in the Spring. The white and yellow fade to light purple and yellow show up well by moonlight. Bees and butterflies love the flowers. It is also a larval host of butterflies. Birds eat the seeds.Try it in your garden. Left alone on good soil, it can grow chest-high. iut it back frequently enough, you can turn it into a flowering carpet. We propagated our plants from native populations in Beaufort and Charleston Cos., SC.