Wildflower Wednesday: Archival Visit-Little Ex-Asters Everywhere

I went into the archives to find a fun Wildflower Wednesday post to share this month because my work space is chaotic from ongoing reconstruction after abatement and remediation from a burst pipe! I've chosen Little Ex-Asters Everywhere. As you'll see in this post I fell under their spell the first fall in this house and it wasn't long after that I became completely charmed by bumblebees and other pollinators that visited them. Once the little asters were the dominant wildflower at Clay and Limestone. I miss that look and feel and will be scattering their seeds hoping they will again make a magnificent presence in this garden.

 

Little Ex-Asters Everywhere: October 21, 2015

Ex-aster time is the best time to be in the garden. The days are warm and Autumn angle of the sun makes everything glow.

Leaves from the oak and hickory canopy have begun to fall and the sunlight that gets blocked all summer is now able to reach the woodland floor where it warms up the garden and spotlights these little beauties.

Even on cool mornings the sunny spots are alive with bees and other pollinators. You have to be very patient to capture a photo of the Bumbles, they're very busy in their mad dash to collect pollen and nectar to fortify their nests for the winter.

 Later in the day the skippers can be seen flitting from flower to flower.

 Bee mimics, like the fly above, are busy nectaring, too.

Green metallic bees are all over the little ex-asters

 Although, the Bumbles are my favorites, I am pretty crazy about all the critters that visit and live in this garden. The little bees green metalic bees make me smile. If you see one, you'll see dozens of them.  

 The ex-asters introduced me to the Bumbles and we've been friends ever since...

Asters (as they were once known) and other Central Basin natives grew with happy abandon in the forested woodland where this garden now stands. In the early 1950s a neighborhood was carved from the woodland and our house was built. Homeowners came and went, while the asters grew quietly on the woodland  edge. Forty-one years ago almost to the day, my husband I bought this house and this brand new gardener fell head over heals in love with the blue clouds of flowers that were covered with bees and butterflies.

 I built my garden around the flowers. I've allowed them to root and seed themselves with abandon.

They've spilled into the paths, crept into the wildflower beds and cozied up to the benches all over Clay and Limestone.

Each fall I wait with anticipation for those first blooms. With them come the pollinators. It's not that there aren't pollinators during the spring or summer, it's knowing that these will be among the last until next spring that makes my heart soar and finds me dashing to the garden first thing in the morning.

What a beautiful dance. Swaying flower stalks and busy bees.

It's been a happy and successful relationship, if I do say so myself!

 

 

THE PARTICULARS

Genus: Symphyotrichum 

Species: S cordifolium and S shortii and maybe a few others that I've added like Calico aster and Aromatic aster

Blue Wood Aster (Symphyotrichum cordifolium): Delicate bluish-purple or pale blue flowers with heart-shaped lower leaves. Forms a slow spreading clump usually in woodland soils that are average to dry. A great plant massed for shady or semi-shady native plant gardens and woodlands. 

Short's Aster (Symphyotrichum shortii, formerly Aster shortii) is a shade-tolerant, native North American perennial wildflower in the family Asteraceae. Grows about 2 to 4 feet tall in upright, bushy clumps. Features pale blue, lavender, or violet-blue ray flowers (0.75" or larger) with central disk florets that start buttery yellow and age to deep reddish-purple after pollination 

Family: Asteraceae 

Life Cycle: Perennial 

Habit/Form: Arching or erect 

Growth Rate: Medium 

Maintenance: Low 

Light: Dappled Sunlight (Shade through upper canopy all day) Partial Shade (Direct sunlight only part of the day, 2-6 hours) 

Soil: Clay, High in Organic Matter, Loam (Silt) 

Drainage: Good Drainage     

Moisture: Occasionally dry and some moisture

Range: Both little ex-asters are happy in eastern US, but, the heart leaved aster is native further west. Neither like Louisiana.

 

Propagation: Best by seed or plant plugs.

Attracts: Bees, Butterflies, Pollinators, Small Mammals, Songbirds and Specialized Bees 

 Comments: If you want a big blue look and have the space and/or tolerance for their green leafyness most of the summer, then, they are the plants for you! You can surely find a few for your garden with over 66 species asters found in the United States.

 They bloom for almost two months, grow in almost any soils, flower in the shade, tolerate drought or deluge, they are also larval host plants for many species of Lepidoptera and are visited by every bee, bee mimic, wasp, skipper and butterfly that lives here or stops by the garden. They are the primary nectar source for late visiting butterflies and bees and if we have a later than usual frost, they are often the only nectar source for the last bees.

PS Please don't use pesticides in your garden and be mindful of where you purchase your plants. Many plants are still being treated with neonics (neonicotinoids). These are systemic poisons that are absorbed into the plant's vascular tissue and cannot be washed off. The chemical permeates everything—the roots, leaves, stems, and crucially, the pollen and nectar. Go here for an article on the effects of neonicotinoids on bees and humans.

xoxogail 

 

Thank you for stopping by and welcome to Clay and Limestone's Wildflower Wednesday celebration. WW is about sharing and celebrating wildflowers from all over this great big, beautiful world. Join us on the fourth Wednesday of each month. Remember, it doesn't matter if your wildflower is in bloom or not; and, it never matters if we all share the same plants.  

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener, Tennessee Naturalist and nature writer in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.

FIrst Wednesday Taking Care of Wildlife Challenge: Fall Bird Migration: Keep Bird Baths Full and Turn Off Your Outdoor Lights

PLEASE!

 Wowzer, look at the number of birds who flew over Tennessee earlier this week. Tennessee is experiencing a drought right now so water is essential. Food helps, too. While you're thinking about birds, please turn off your outdoor lights at night!

And, Davidson county statistics!

Over 39 Million birds flew over Tennessee overnight on Monday of this week...and millions more will continue migrating south through November.

Birds migrate south as winter approaches because insects and other foods are dwindling. They're traveling to areas that have food and nesting. Some birds stay put because they can find adequate food and water, others are traveling anywhere from a hundred miles to several hundred. The birds that are being monitored by Bird Cast are long-distance migrators. "They typically move from breeding ranges in the United States and Canada to wintering grounds in Central and South America. It's an arduous journey and over 350 different species of North American birds are long distance migrators." (source)

 

Nuthatches don't usually migrate from middle TN. They are frequent visitors to bird feeders

Migration is a natural phenomena that happens every fall and spring. Their journey is physically taxing and the lack of adequate food and water supplies along the way, bad weather, exposure to predators and the ever increasing danger from colliding into lit up buildings all add to making this journey hazardous.

Here's what we can do to help birds during their arduous journey

 

Provide food

Fill your garden with native plants that attract insects that birds will need or have seeds that birds eat both provide needed fuel. Plant these: sunflowers, purple coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, and various asters, goldenrods, and native grasses like Big Bluestem and Little Bluestem. For birds that prefer nuts, plant native oaks, hickories, and hazels. Leaving these plants standing with their seed heads intact through fall and winter provides a crucial food source for migratory birds.

Provide fresh water

Make your windows obvious, especially the big picture windows. Windows are reflective and confuse birds. Add decals, paint spider webs, stripes or designs, this will keep birds from colliding into them when they stop at our feeders. 

Go lights out at 11pm to 6am during migration (spring and fall)

Become an advocate: Work to get your community involved in turning off their outdoor lights from 11pm to 6am every night. 

Join local groups advocating for birds and other critters: Bird Safe Nashville, Nashville Urban Bird, The Nature Conservancy of Tennessee, Tennessee Environmental Council

Investigate where migrating birds might be staging near you. For years Purple Martins have been roosting in the trees in downtown Nashville. I didn't see their roosting site in August and really missed seeing them. The photo below is from September 1, 2025

 

 

Sept 1, 2025 downtown Nashville

Providing Food for birds is a year round gardening commitment

Because we get a lot of joy from observing them in our gardens, Michael and I feed the birds and provide water year round. I garden for wildlife so the garden has been designed with critters in mind. In fact, nearly every plant has been chosen with birds, insects and other critters in mind. My native shrubs provide food, nesting and shelter for mammals and birds, as well as being a host plant to butterflies, moths and other insects that keep my wildflower garden thriving. Native plants are also a haven for tasty insects which so many migrants, particularly the Warblers need for fuel. 

I hope that there's enough food in the garden for hungry migrating birds that stopover; if not, there will always be supplemental seed and suet in feeders and water in the bird baths and raised ponds. Biologists refer to places as “stopover” habitats, areas where birds stop to rest, eat, and seek shelter from predators. Some stopover sites are so large they can even be called “staging areas” because so many birds come together to rest and then continue their migration. One of the most famous staging areas around the world is along the Platte River in central Nebraska, where more than 500,000 sandhill cranes gather in a spectacle of migration! (source) That's on my "got to see list".

 Water is essential to migrating Birds.

 My garden has been crispy from the heat dome that sat over middle Tennessee for weeks. 100˚ days and no rain were devastating for the garden. We asked John, the owner of The Woodthrush, what we could be doing for migrating birds. He said that water was super important for migrating birds. We are keeping our birdbaths topped up with clean water for our resident and visiting birds. 

 

 

Here's a little bit more about birds and water that you might like to know.

Birds need water just as much as they need food. The birds that live and visit our garden need dependable water to survive. Each day, an adult bird needs to drink enough water to make up 5 percent of its body weight to replace the water lost from waste removal, respiration and evaporation. Water performs a number of important functions: bathing, to clean feathers and remove parasites. They get some of their water/moisture from the insects and fruit they eat, but, they need to drink water every day. 

 

How we can provide water:

• Bird baths. Place them near cover so birds can hide from prey. Place in shade so water stays fresh. Change water often. I heat mine all winter so there is water for birds when it's freezing out.
  
• Place water dishes on the ground since many birds prefer drinking water like this.
  
• If you have the resources a pond or stream would be ideal.
• Raised bed ponds with a way for birds to safely drink.
  
• A shallow galvanized container with rocks for birds to perch on works well, too.
  
• Misters, water wigglers, and drippers invite birds to come to bird baths and natural pools.
  
• When desperate for rain, as we've been lately, I turn on an over head sprinkler and watch the birds fly in and out of the water. It's magical, they arrive the minute the water is turned on. It makes me happy and takes care of many of the critters. I do it for the birds post.

 

Migrating birds need this very important thing to happen, too.

Birds that migrate or hunt at night navigate by moonlight and starlight. Migratory birds depend on cues from properly timed seasonal schedules. Artificial lights can cause them to migrate too early or too late and miss ideal climate conditions for nesting, foraging, and other behaviors. It can also cause them to be attracted to illuminated building where they can collide and die. (source) 

Collision hazards for birds come in many forms and can affect many types of birds. In fact, nearly one billion birds collide with glass in the U.S. alone each year. Most of these (preventable) fatalities happen at homes and buildings shorter than four stories tall. Please make note of that fact...Birds are in danger of our lit-up homes, not just sky-scrappers, wind-turbines or towers.

According to research scientist Christopher Kyba, for nocturnal animals “the introduction of artificial light probably represents the most drastic change human beings have made to their environment.” 

“Predators use light to hunt, and prey species use darkness as cover,” Kyba explains. “Near cities, cloudy skies are now hundreds or even thousands of times brighter than they were 200 years ago. We are only beginning to learn what a drastic effect this has had on nocturnal ecology.” (source)

Migrating Purple Martins 2024

One last thing.

This is my plea to you all. Please turn off your outdoor lights from 11pm to 6am every night.  I wish you would consider turning off your eave lights, tree up-lighting and porch lights every night, but if not always, please, turn them off during bird migration. For more information about the effects of artificial lighting on all living creatures go to my post First Wednesday Challenge: Every Day Needs A Night.

Thank for reading, xoxogail

 PS. Birds you might not recognize could be stopping by to nosh at your feeders and take a dip in your water features. To help you id them I recommend the  Merlin Bird Id.

 

 

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener, Tennessee Naturalist and nature writer in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.

Wildflower Wednesday: Fleischmannia incarnata, Worth A Second Look

Pink thoroughwort, our Wildflower Wednesday star, is struggling in the intense heat but, by golly it hasn't died! 

 

It prefers a moist environment and it's been anything but moist this past month in middle Tennessee. I discovered it in my garden about ten years ago. It looked like  Conoclinium coelestinum/Blue Mistflower, but, the flowers were less numerous and pink, plus it was practically laying on the soil and  blue-mist flower is upright with sturdy red stems. 

 

I'm never surprised to discover a new native plant in this neighborhood or even in my garden. Plants frequently appear, either having gone unnoticed or because conditions were favorable for growth of seeds in the soil seed bank. 

Wildflowers and other Central Basin natives grew with happy abandon in the forested woodland where this garden now stands. In the 1940s and early 1950s a neighborhood was carved from the woodland and houses were built. Homeowners came and went, while the wildflowers grew quietly on the woodland edge. Forty plus years ago, my husband I bought this house and that I fell head over heals in love with the wildflowers that bloomed that first fall and spring. The autumn memory of blue clouds of ex-asters that were covered with bees and butterflies still makes me smile. 

The woodland remnants in my backyard and side yards were where I discovered the beautiful wildflowers that have become my gardening soulmates: False Soloman's Seal, Spring Beauties, Purple phacelia, Rue Anemone, Trout-lily, False Garlic, Blue-eyed Grass, Wild Sweet William, Sweet Betsy, Goldenrods, Blue Mistflower, Frostweed and those many white and blue ex-asters.

Long time readers might remember that I built this garden around those native beauties, so, finding  Fleischmannia incarnata back then was a wonderful addition to the mixture.

source: Alan Cressler

 Fleischmannia incarnata is a North American species of flowering plant in the Asteracea family. It is native to the United States from Florida north as far as Virginia, Ohio, and Illinois, and west to Texas and Oklahoma and even Arizona. It's found growing in moist woodlands, thickets, marshes, and along streambanks. In optimal growing conditions, it can reach 6 feet tall, but, in my garden it's a low branching sprawler. It produces numerous flower heads in a flat-topped array at the ends of the stems, each head has about 20 pink or whitish-pink disk flowers per head. There are no ray flowers.

The leaves are opposite, widely spaced at nodes, and triangular shaped; they remind me of Nepeta. They're softer to the touch than leaves of Blue Mistflower, which is another way to tell them apart.

leaves are described as catnip like!

It has an airy, loose limbed attractiveness and is a good partner for Eupatorium serotinum, both are found in moist shade. It's not unusual to find it sprawling against neighboring plants in a lax fashion. Training it on a trellis might help show off it's pretty flower faces to the world.

Foraging bees are frequent visitors. Skippers hover around it, doing their lovely mating dances. It doesn't appear to be a host plant for butterflies, but, if anyone reading this knows otherwise, please let me know. Birds feed on the dry seed heads, so leave the plant standing over winter.

 

Source

 Here's why I think you should bother to try to locate and grow pink thoroughwort in your garden.

• It's a late season, low maintenance native flower that supports pollinators and birds
• Native to the southeastern United States and west to TX, OK and AZ 
• It thrives naturally in woodland edges, moist thickets, and average garden soils
• Deer resistant
• Fragrant blooms
• Lovely colored flowers 

 The particulars

Botanical name: Fleischmannia incarnata
Common Name: pink slender thoroughwort, pink thoroughwort, pink boneset
Herbaceous perennial
Native Range: In the USA: AL, AR, AZ, FL, GA, IL, IN, KY, LA, MO, MS, NC, OH, OK, SC, TN, TX, VA, WV. May even be found in upper midwest states

source

 

Tennessee Range:

Size: 12 in. - 6 ft. | 30 cm - 1.8 m, low branching growth habit, sprawling. 

Bloom Time: Aug–Dec. depending upon where you garden

Bloom Description:Inflorescence - Flat-topped panicles of heads at branch tips and flower heads with disc florets and no ray florets. Flowers are fragrant.

Best Plant Description: In appearance it is reminiscent of a tall, gangly ageratum with pale pinkish florets and catnip-like leaves.

Sun Light: Shade, Partial to Full Shade

Water: Prefers moist soil

National Wetland Indicator Status: FACU+ FAC

 Maintenance: Low, as long as it is not allowed to dry out.

Propagation Methods: From seed; direct sow outdoors in fall or direct sow after last frost.

Seed Collecting: Allow seedheads to dry on plants; remove and collect seeds.

Comments:Woodlands, thickets, moist soil, roads, ditches, stream banks, bottomlands, swamps, depressions, cedar glades and if your lucky in your garden.

Wildlife value: This plant is attractive to bees, butterflies and/or birds (seeds). Doesn't appear to be a butterfly host plant, but, it is an excellent nectar source.

Commercially available:  Beaufort, SC nursery, Lone Star Nursery in Austin, Rewild Memphis


xoxogail

Welcome to Clay and Limestone's Wildflower Wednesday celebration. WW is about sharing and celebrating wildflowers from all over this great big, beautiful world. Join us on the fourth Wednesday of each month. Remember, it doesn't matter if they are in bloom  and, it doesn't matter if we all share the same plants. It's all about celebrating wildflowers. Please share your wildflowers on your favorite social media site. Share to help educate others.

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener, Tennessee Naturalist and nature writer in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.