Shade Tolerant Asters of Eastern North America

The White Wood Aster is known by the scientific name Eurybia divaricata, previously classified as Aster divaricatus.  This plant is among the most shade tolerant of all asters, and it is truly a shade-loving plant.  It grows and thrives in full shade, even sometimes dense shade, and actually grows better in part shade than it does in sun.

In addition to its tolerance of shady conditions, this species is also tolerant of dry conditions, and can grow and thrive in poor, gravely soil, although it also grows well in rich soil so long as it is well-drained.

It blooms August-September, and its flowers are white with yellow centers or sometimes brown or purplish centers.  The flowers are small but numerous, and are among the showiest you can find for fall-blooming plants in full-shade.

This plant is native to a wide range in eastern North America, and attracts butterflies, and supports a number of native insects that in turn provide food for nesting birds.  Planting this plant can be beneficial to the environment if you live near forested areas that are overrun with invasive plants, as this plant has wind-dispersed seeds, and it is able to hold its own against non-native plants even in degraded ecosystems.

Read more about this plant on its Missouri Botanical Garden's page, or its Wikipedia article.

The bigleaf aster, or large-leaved aster, Eurybia macrophylla, is a shade-tolerant aster that has unusually large, fuzzy leaves.  The leaves stay mostly close to the ground, but the flower stalks reach 2-4 feet in height, and the plant can spread out considerably in the horizontal direction.

It grows and flowers best in part-shade, but can tolerate full shade (perhaps not quite as well as the white wood aster).  The flowers are violet to pale blue, with yellow centers, and compared to the blue wood aster, which has compact flowers with short rays, the petals of this species are longer, giving it a more wispy look when blooming.  It often blooms September-October, later than a lot of other flowers.  Its foliage is very attractive and it is often grown more for its leaves, which concentrate in a whorl at the base of the plant, than its bloom.

Read more about this plant on the Missouri Botanical Garden's page, or on Wikipedia.

The blue wood aster, also called the heartleaf aster, is one of my favorite plants.

It is a prolific bloomer, producing a large number of pale blue to lavender-blue flowers, with yellow or purple centers, in late summer to early fall.  Its foliage is also unique and attractive, with distinctive heart-shaped leaves that have a slight bluish tint to them.
It initially grows upright, but, if not grown amongst other plants, by the time it blooms the stalks often fall over.
Compared to the white wood aster, the blue wood aster is slightly less tolerant of deep shade conditions, but it still thrives in part shade, and can be grown under the shade of trees that allow scattered light through, or in exposures where it receives only dappled sunlight.

The Whorled Aster, Oclemena acuminata, previously named Aster divaricatus, is a somewhat different-looking plant from the other asters featured above.  It is relatively easy to identify even from its leaves.  It is named for the fact that its leaves tend to grow in a whorled pattern.

The whorled aster blooms white with yellow to brown/purplish centers, and it tends to bloom July through October, depending on region and conditions.  The petals on each flower are sparse and spindly, tending to curve backwards.

This species is another good choice for dense shade, although it is also more tolerant of full sun than the white wood aster, which truly prefers shade.  It has a slightly smaller native range than some of the other species, found from far northern Georgia and eastern Tennessee, concentrating more in the northeast.

You can read more about this species on the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center's page for it, or on its USDA Plants Profile.