Playing Favorites: New York Ironweed (Vernonia Noveboracensis)

Last year I fell head over heels in love with a plant I’d unknowingly already been in love with for years. On my first visit to the spectacular Catskill Native Nursery — a year ago today coincidentally — I was stopped in my tracks by the dense stands everywhere of an upright plant, taller than me, with dark red-purple blossoms dancing atop it. I made a beeline for the first staffperson I could see and quickly learned that it was all Ironweed (mainly native New York Ironweed, aka Vernonia noveboracensis) and where I could find the nursery pots of it for sale. I had been wanting something that would get tall quickly to plant in front of bare windows and this was the plant for me.

It was only after I dug a couple of them in and watched them bloom that a dim lightbulb flickered on in the back of my brain and I called up my camera roll, scrolling back to long walks on the Nashville Greenway pre-pandemic. Sure enough, I had countless pics and videos of giant Ironweed in my phone, from over the course of a half-dozen years, swaying in the breeze. It made me happy every year to see it bloom — both because it was beautiful (and always fluttering with butterflies) and because its arrival meant that Nashville’s unbearable summer would eventually end! But I guess I never bothered to find out what it was because I wasn’t gardening there. It never even occurred to me it might be something a person could plant! And I’ve taken still more pics of it in a meadow in one of our favorite Catskills forests over the last few summers.

Finding it already on my camera roll made me love Ironweed all the more, and I’ve added several plants this year (a couple of different varieties), tucking them into spots where my evergreens and viburnums will be big and tall someday but currently aren’t. And in the process, I’ve discovered hummingbirds are also Ironweed fans, along with the expected birds and butterflies. Last time I carried a couple of plants to the counter at Catskill Native I told the guy behind it that they’ve made an Ironweed addict out of me. He bobbed his head sagely and said, “Well, if you’re gonna have a monkey on your back, that’s a pretty good one to have.”

Those plants I put in last year are about 7 feet high right now, and in varying stages of bloom. They are maybe a little weedy looking — not yet dense like the ones at the nursery, of course — but I’m genuinely obsessed with them and can’t wait for next year, when the new additions will be just as big and everyone is starting to clump. 

The hashtag I used to put on my Greenway pics on Instagram was #weedsandwildflowersforever — and that’s pretty much my garden aesthetic in a nutshell. Ironweed reigning supreme.

PLANT DETAILS:
• New York Ironweed Vernonia noveboracensis (among others), native to NY and much of the Eastern U.S.
• Member of the Aster family, Asteraceae
• Upright, clumping growth habit
• Full sun
• Likes moist soil but I’m told is adaptable
• Grows quickly up to 8' tall x ... ~3' wide? (will confirm over time)
• Sprays of deep red-purple flowers in late summer and fall 
• Loved by bees, butterflies and hummingbirds
• Seeds are great for birds in winter
• Cut to the ground in late winter and will regrow from the roots