I hate mums—or more properly Chrysanthemum sp.—with a passion second only to my distaste for the new “fancy” petunias that never last through the summer. But mums are about as worthless in the garden in my estimation. Yes, they provide us some nice fall color, if you just want flowers, but they provide nothing interesting in the way of decent foliage contrast or shape variation, and the rest of the year they’re either just a slowly-growing blob that sits there like a green turd in your landscape, or they’re dead stems that break with the first snowfall. I’d sooner plant ragweed in the yard than a border of mums.
Now, pay attention, asters are easy to grow perennial plants that take care of themselves all summer long. Their vigorous blooms appear later in the season, right when other flowers begin to fade. A surefire way of adding great fall color for years to come, Asters’ gorgeous flowers will stay true and strong until hard frosts set in. Aster is a popular and dependable food source for Monarch butterflies, who rely on the nectar of late-season blooms to fuel their fall migration. Oh by the way, asters are very hardy and rarely die no matter what soil they are planted in.
