Amateur Gardening

Top Ten Asters

SOMETIMES, when we use the phrase Michaelmas daisies, we seem to be implying that these impressive autumn-flowering perennials are somehow too common to bother with. Someone once asked me: “Do you grow the pink one, as well as the blue one?”

Actually, there are hundreds of varieties from 1-6½ft (30cm-2m) in height, with single and double daisies that come into their own as most other perennials are running out of steam. And pink and blue is the least of it.

Asters for everyone

Since colonists returning from North America, way back in 1710, brought plants of American native species with them, new

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