Obedient plant

Appalachian-Blue Ridge forests

Arizona Mountains forests

Atlantic coastal pine barrens

Blue Mountains forests

Central Pacific Northwest coastal forests

Central Tallgrass prairie

Central-Southern Cascades Forests

Chilean Matorral

Colorado Rockies forests

Appalachian mixed mesophytic forests

What it needs

Conditions

Light

Full sun / Part shade

Water

Consistent moisture

Spacing

24"

Habit

Erect, clump-forming perennial with square, often branching stems that spreads by shallow rhizomes into a widening patch, most of all in rich, moist soil

Care tips

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Decide where it may spread before you plant: in rich, moist soil it runs by shallow rhizomes, so give it a meadow, rain garden or other spot where a widening patch is welcome, or choose the non-spreading cultivar 'Miss Manners'.

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Divide clumps every year or two in rich, moist soil and pull up stray shoots, which come out easily because the roots are shallow, as NC State Extension and the Wildflower Center both say.

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Go easy on fertilizer and give it full sun to keep the stems upright, since NC State Extension and the Missouri Botanical Garden say they flop in rich soil or shade; stake taller plants if they do.

Lifecycle

Planting

Plant it in sun or part shade in moist, moderately fertile soil: NC State Extension asks for moist, well-drained soil, the RHS for fertile, reliably moist soil, and the Wildflower Center for moist, humus-rich soil. It tolerates clay and occasionally wet ground, and the Wildflower Center says it copes with both drought and poor drainage. Full sun keeps the stems upright, since the Missouri Botanical Garden warns that too much shade makes them flop. The sources disagree on soil pH: the Missouri Botanical Garden says acidic soil, NC State lists neutral to alkaline, and the RHS acid, neutral or alkaline. Because it spreads, give it room where a widening patch is welcome, or plant a non-spreading cultivar.

Transplanting

Divide or move clumps in early spring or late fall, as the Wildflower Center advises; NC State Extension says spring or fall, and the RHS early spring. In rich, moist soil NC State suggests dividing every year or two to keep it contained, and stray pieces are easy to pull out because the roots are shallow.

Early growth

The Wildflower Center calls it easy to establish. Keep the soil reliably moist, as the RHS advises, but go easy on fertilizer: NC State Extension and the Missouri Botanical Garden both say the stems flop in rich soil, and NC State that it spreads most aggressively in rich, moist soil.

Maturity

NC State Extension and the Missouri Botanical Garden both give 3 to 4 feet tall and 2 to 3 feet wide; the RHS gives up to 3.3 feet, Wikipedia 2 to 4 feet and the Wildflower Center up to about 5 feet. Taller stems may need staking: NC State and the Missouri Botanical Garden say they flop in rich soil, in too much shade or in hot summers. The RHS suggests cutting back the old stems in winter. NC State lists occasional aphids and blackspot fungal disease, the Missouri Botanical Garden occasional rust, aphids and spider mites, and the RHS slugs, snails and fungal and bacterial rots. NC State, the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Wildflower Center all rate it as resistant to deer.

Propagation

Grow it from seed or by division, as NC State Extension, the RHS and the Wildflower Center all say. The Wildflower Center says to collect the small, dull brown nutlets, about 0.1 inches long, and sow them in fall, or in spring after three months of damp stratification at 40°F; the RHS sows seed in containers in a cold frame in autumn. The white cultivars 'Miss Manners' and 'Summer Snow', both listed by NC State, are bought as plants.

Native range

Native across 35 US states + 3 CA provinces.

Worldwide native range.

Native ecoregions

Naturally belongs in 24 ecoregions - its native range crosses a state or province each one spans (not necessarily this exact habitat).

Appalachian-Blue Ridge forests

Arizona Mountains forests

Atlantic coastal pine barrens

Canadian Aspen forests and parklands

Central Tallgrass prairie

Chihuahuan desert

Colorado Rockies forests

Cross-Timbers savanna-woodland

Eastern Canadian Forest-Boreal transition

An upright, clump-forming perennial of the mint family native to the upper Midwest, Great Plains, and into central Canada, named for its anise-scented foliage. From June through September it carries dense terminal spikes of lavender-to-purple two-lipped flowers above square stems and opposite, toothed leaves. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center flags it as a nectar source with special value to native bees, bumble bees, and honey bees, and it also draws butterflies and hummingbirds.

Climate notes

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The Missouri Botanical Garden lists Physostegia virginiana for USDA hardiness zones 3 to 9 (3a-9b), the range used here. NC State Extension gives a wider 2a-9b, reaching one zone colder; no second source states 3a-9b exactly. The RHS rates it H7, hardy in the severest European continental climates, below -4°F.

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The native range here is taken from Kew's World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP), the dataset POWO publishes: central and eastern North America, from Newfoundland, Labrador, Quebec and Ontario west across Manitoba and Saskatchewan to Alberta, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and Yukon, and in the United States from Maine, Michigan, Minnesota and North Dakota south to Florida, Texas and New Mexico, with northeastern Mexico. WCVP records it as introduced in Germany and Great Britain.

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The Wildflower Center's state and province list, which records where the plant grows, adds Delaware, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, Utah and New Brunswick, none of which WCVP lists as native, so this record's state list leaves them out; for Montana the Wildflower Center says only that it has been reported there. WCVP in turn includes Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, Yukon, Newfoundland and Labrador, which the Wildflower Center's list lacks. The Wildflower Center sums up the native range as Quebec to Minnesota and eastern South Dakota, south to Florida, Texas and Coahuila in northern Mexico, and the Missouri Botanical Garden as Quebec to Manitoba, south to Florida and New Mexico.

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In gardens the species spreads rather than staying put: NC State Extension tags it aggressive and weedy, especially in damp soils, the Missouri Botanical Garden calls species plants aggressive spreaders by rhizomes and self-seeding, and the Wildflower Center says it spreads aggressively by stolons but is easy to pull out and keep in check. Citing Ontario Native Plants (2002), the Wildflower Center notes that several garden forms occasionally escape. USDA PLANTS gives it no invasive or noxious status, and none of the sources calls it invasive.

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Wikipedia describes two subspecies: subsp. virginiana, which forms patches from rhizomes, has smaller flowers and grows in wetter places such as stream banks and bottomlands, and subsp. praemorsa, which reaches further south to Texas and New Mexico, has larger flowers and no rhizomes, and grows in drier uplands such as prairies and glades. It says garden cultivars are intermediate between the two.

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Sources describe its wild home in similar words: NC State Extension says wet meadows, barrens and glades, seepages in open woods and damp thickets, and open upland forest where the soil is high in pH; the Missouri Botanical Garden open meadows, prairies, stream banks, gravel bars and the bases of wooded bluffs in Missouri; and the Wildflower Center river banks, wet thickets, prairies, swamps and low ground on sand, clay or limestone. The Wildflower Center's wetland ratings class it in most regions as a plant that usually grows in wetlands.

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Sources differ on when it flowers: NC State Extension says midsummer until the first frost in its description and July to October in its flower notes, the Missouri Botanical Garden late June to September, the RHS midsummer to early autumn, and the Wildflower Center August to November.

Similar plants

Browse lateral options with similar roles, light needs, size, or native-range overlap; these are not filtered for a better climate fit.

Agastache foeniculum

Anise hyssop

A long-lived native perennial of central and eastern US woodland borders and prairie meadows with deep blue pea-shaped flowers in late spring, blue-green leguminous foliage, attractive black seed pods for winter interest, and a nitrogen-fixing root system (Fabaceae). Larval host for 6 documented butterfly species per NC State (orange sulphur, clouded sulphur, frosted elfin, eastern tailed-blue, hoary edge, wild indigo duskywing) - among the highest Lep-host-count perennials in the eastern flora.

A short-lived native perennial of wet woodland edges, stream banks, and ditches across the Americas, named for the brilliant scarlet-red flowers that rise on erect, unbranched terminal spikes from mid-to-late summer. Each tubular, two-lipped bloom is shaped for the hummingbird tongue - the plant depends on ruby-throated hummingbirds for pollination because most insects cannot work the long flower tube. It demands constant moisture and tolerates brief flooding, but its foliage carries alkaloids that are very toxic to humans if eaten.

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

Amsonia tabernaemontana

Eastern bluestar

Also called blue star, willow amsonia or woodland bluestar, this is a native perennial of the dogbane family from the eastern and south-central United States, where it grows in moist, sandy or rocky open woods, thickets, stream banks and ditches. It makes an erect, rounded clump of leafy stems 2 to 3 feet tall and wide, topped in spring by clusters of small, pale blue, star-shaped flowers and followed by slender, bean-like pods. The narrow, willow-shaped leaves may turn yellow to golden in fall. It grows slowly and stays where it is planted, and NC State Extension and the Missouri Botanical Garden both list it as tolerant of deer and drought: its stems and leaves carry a milky latex that herbivores avoid.

A native upright perennial of central + eastern North American prairies, woodland margins, and open woods producing tall vertical spires of white tubular flowers in late spring. The species name "digitalis" honors a flower-shape resemblance to true foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) - but Penstemon digitalis is NOT toxic in the same way (NC State explicit: "lacks the toxicity associated with foxglove"). Specialist Penstemon mason bee (Osmia distincta) relationship per NC State. The popular 'Husker Red' cultivar adds burgundy foliage for foliage-color design.

A clump-forming native perennial of the carrot family that opens flat-topped, compound umbels of tiny golden-yellow flowers in late spring, when little else is blooming. The toothed, twice-divided-in-threes (biternate) foliage and the bare central flower stalk on each umbel set it apart from other umbellifers. A documented larval host for the black swallowtail and an early-season nectar and pollen source for short-tongued native bees.