This has been a mystery plant in the garden for a while. It's in the front on the other side of the driveway from the mailbox, right next to the bag worm infested evergreen shrub (which I did NOT take care of this weekend). I first noticed clumps of new foliage in the spring. I didn't recognize it as a weed and the placement seemed intentional, so I left it.
I wasn't crazy about the foliage. It's quite rigid and almost reminded me of a thistle or some other sort of aggressive weed, so I kept an eye on it. In June and July, the plant bloomed and the pleasant blue flowers helped me identify it as Stokesia laevis, or Stokes aster . There weren't a ton of blooms, but the butterflies seemed to be attracted to them.
Now, the spent blossoms are closed up like an artichoke. I'm supposed to deadhead them, but I like they way they look, so I think I'm going to leave them. I'm still on the fence about this plant -- it's native to the southeast US and seems to be deer resistant. It's also supposed to have evergreen foliage, which I'll be monitoring over the winter. Despite all these checks in the "Pro" column, I'm just not excited about it.
Do you keep any mediocre plants in your garden?
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