Ampelaster carolinianus
Common Name(s):
Previously known as:
- Symphyotrichum carolinianum
- Phonetic Spelling
- am-pel-ASS-ter kay-ro-lin-ee-AY-nus
- Description
Climbing Aster is a sprawling herbaceous perennial that produces long stems and can climb to heights greater than 10 feet. It prefers to sprawl over the top of fence posts or other plants or can be located and allowed to use a trellis for its support. The side branches grow horizontally, allowing them to use adjoining plants for support of the plant structure.
It can be found growing in marshy shores, stream banks, edges of swamps, moist thickets or wet woodlands. Standing water may affect the plant's health, so a location where good drainage can be accomplished is desirable. It will tolerate seasonal flooding.
Deadhead this plant in the fall, but refrain from any additional trimming at that time. Delaying until spring when the plant is showing signs of awakening is a better alternative.
In the late summer and fall, it produces pink to purple blooms with yellow centers.
The rapid growing-spreading habit may require frequent division.
Insects, Diseases and Other Plant Problems: Common diseases of the climbing aster include wilt disease, powdery mildew, and botrytis.
2 comments:
Can you elaborate on how you actually start to train the aster? Do you weave the stems through, or do you let the plant weave itself?
I did weave the stems through for the first few months of growth. I planted in the fall, had a fair amount of growth, then dormant winter time. We had bunnies munching the aster so we put a 3-foot “fence” of chicken wire around the base of the trellis - this was meant to come off later but that first spring the aster group by leaps and bounds, and the chicken wire actually lent some early support as well as kept rabbits out. It is still there. If you look through my posts (I apologize that I have never managed to do more organizing to make it easy to find them) you’ll see the aster is now huge and very healthy. I stopped weaving the stems by that first summer. It’s a beautiful plant and I hope you have success if you plant this!
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