Garden Highlights

Don't miss our Garden Highlights, updated every Thursday featuring plants for their outstanding ornamental characteristics. Discover everything from flowers to fruit, buds, bark and more. You can search for specific plants using the Plant Finder

Featured: Sept. 25-Oct. 1

Common Name: New England Aster
Scientific Name: Symphyotrichum novae-angliae

Symphyotrichum novae-angliae or New England aster, is a native plant commonly found growing in regions from the eastern to central United States. With more ray flowers — commonly known as petals — than many typical asters, the New England aster is a showy native plant that can grow to heights of up to 6 feet. Not only are the blooms bountiful and beautiful, this fall-blooming flower is an important late-season food source for pollinators, as it can bloom from August to late October in Minnesota.

At the Arboretum, you can find New England aster in many of the natural areas, as well as the specialty gardens. There are many cultivars of this aster in the nursery trade, providing options to select blooms with a specific hue of pink, purple, blue or white.

Visit the Elizabeth Slade-Carr Perennial Garden to see several different cultivars on display, the Garden for Wildlife to see the largest quantity in bloom or use our Plant Finder to discover other locations of cultivated New England aster throughout the Arboretum.

Garden Highlights

Featured: Sept. 25-Oct. 1

Hungarian Daisy

Crabapple

Common Toad-lily

Garden Mum

Dahlia

Crooked Stem Aster

Miniature Rose

Fall Blooming Reed Grass

Red Oak

Japanese Anemone

Arrowwood Viburnum

Rough Goldenrod

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