One of the things that makes gardening so perpetually, addictively interesting to me is how it challenges beliefs I’d previously held about myself – often on an annual basis. Some beliefs are big, others are smaller, such as my dislike of asters.
Ask me in the middle of spring, when everything is new and fresh, and the tulip petals look as if they’ve been streaked with a fan-shaped brush, and I will confidently say I’m not an aster fan. Too fussy, too much lilac, too bushy. But scoot forward six months, and I regret I hadn’t planted a few in the gaps that appear at this time of year.
For the uninitiated, asters – also known as Michaelmas daisies because they are often in flower in late September – are a large group of several species of shrubby daisies.
They are unfussy to grow, will put up with part shade or full sun, and aren’t particularly needy, as long as they’re not subjected to drought or boggy conditions. In short, there’s probably somewhere in your growing space that could accommodate one where there isn’t anything else growing for the next few months. I’ve been prompted to think about asters because we’ve just moved into a house with a blank slate of a back garden, and the promise of a good, dry garden out the front. The number of ornamental plants growing across both could be counted on one hand, and the bog-standard pale purple (a colour that always reminds me of Tammy Girl circa 1998, iykyk) aster is among them.
If you’re starting a garden from scratch, with not much money, addressing whether you can accept what’s currently happy there is a fair basis for a contented relationship. I’m beginning to think I will welcome them not only into the front garden, but also into the back, where my dreams of Piet Oudolf-style clouds of dew-dropped asters will shiver into future autumns.
Oudolf – the Dutch garden designer whose clumps of naturalistic planting have inspired more contemporary gardens than most – deployed A. umbellatus in the Oudolf Field at Hauser & Wirth art centre in Bruton, Somerset. It’s white, which makes it a great palette-cleanser for the bolder, warmer tones of late-summer and autumn planting, and pleasingly tall.
I’m also eyeing up A. pyrenaeus ‘Lutetia’, a favourite of Beth Chatto’s, which has large, spidery flowers in the palest lilac. If you wanted something more keenly purple, check out Symphyotrichum novi-belgii ‘Violetta’, which is real wizard’s-robe territory.
Some will flower long into the autumn, and then offer up graceful skeletons for catching frost. In spring, cut them back, remind yourself you once said you didn’t like asters, and be grateful you’ve changed your ways.
