Our Plants

Named by Dr. Alan Armitage, of the University of Georgia. Vigorously spreading, deep purple clusters from June to November. Excellent clean, deep green foliage with a trailing habit. Has been surviving the winter here lately, but it gets a very slow start in the spring. Best treated as an annual zone 6 or less.

Vernonia ‘Summer’s Surrender’ is a unique plant. What makes it so? Bushy, dark olive-green foliage, disease resistance, and a distinct shrub-like form that grows wider than tall, 'Summer's Surrender' is an easy choice to submit. It doesn't lodge like other cultivars and is covered in airy purple clusters through late summer into fall. 

The most diminutive of hybrid ironweeds available on the market, ‘Summer’s Swan Song’ is a selection from our friend Jim Ault at Chicago Botanic Garden. The foliage is olive green with a purple tinge on wine red stems and covered in deep purple flowers from early to mid-autumn. Attention-grabbing at CBG’s Vernonia trials, the long flowering branches interlock to hold the stems upright on the blusteriest of days.

This selection of the Arkansas native comes to us from Dr. Allan Armitage's trials at the University of Georgia. It has lovely fine foliage like Amsonia hubrichtii and is a compact, well-branched and vigorous plant. In late summer it is covered with true purple flowers that attract plenty of butterflies. Found in rocky flood plains, Vernonia lettermannii is very tolerant of hot dry locations, yet can withstand brief periods of inundation.

Deep blue-purple spikes are decidedly upright and plentiful. This variety is compact and slowly spreading. Superb!

Big dramatic spikes of white Veronica-like flowers in July and August. Very tough and long-lasting once established. Found in open woods, moist meadows, and praries east of the Rockies.

Golden clusters of 3-4" umbels in May and June. Deep green, leathery, handsomely divided basal foliage. Native to wooded bottomlands, stream banks, moist meadows, and floodplains east of the Rockies. Very attractive to butterflies.