Balancing Goldernrod with Asters
“What you need is a few sunflowers,” suggested the goldenrod authority. He was circling the meadow in fading light as evening was settling in. He had observed that I had nothing but the usual goldenrod, but to my great disappointment he would not name them. I was hoping for an authoritative identification of the few species that populate the field.
Sunflowers were not on my radar. The only native sunflower I know prefers woodland of which I have almost none. But scanning the meadow bursting with goldenrod I decided what I want is more asters like these New York asters that grow near the bog.
The goldenrod authority was also a house guest, and notwithstanding the sunflower suggestion, brought an aster as a gift. I planted his aster on Monday but it looked lonely. Wednesday bought 6 more: Rhody Native asters ( 3 A. novi-belgii and 3 A. undulatus) from Blue Moon Nursery. Emily planted them at the edge of meadow between “Susan’s folly” and the veggie garden. These seven asters have their work cut out to begin to balance the resurgence of goldenrod where Bittersweet used to dominate.
A year ago, I could not have imagined that I would have a field yellowed with Goldenrod today. It seems that where I disturbed the ground in pulling Bittersweet, Goldernrod seeded.
Area formerly Bittersweet dominated to south of veggie garden
- Goldenrod filling in where Bittersweet used to rule
Meadow Restoration 
Hard to believe that summer is almost over and your meadow will have nothing in flower. It looks beautiful now. I love asters too.
Lovely Asters, carry on!
The Little Bluestem is just coming into its own so the meadow will be ablaze with its seed heads for the coming month. Only then does it go out of bloom.
Thinking fondly of the meadow….
Dorie, the brush pile at the back end of the meadow has been thinking about you. It is decomposing until it becomes a more manageable size, at which point it might want to go up in flames. It has that nasty Dodder at the bottom that should be burned. We’ll be consulting with Three Birds on the natter.
The yellow goldenrod is one of my favorite fall wildflowers, and not the cause of hayfever and some thought.
You learned that fact about goldenrod from this meadow! It’s ragweed that makes you sneeze.