Liatris companion plants can be ideal for your flower garden as well as helping your liatris. A few lovely examples include sunflowers and purple coneflowers.
You’re on the right path to learning more because we have jotted down some perfect plant combination ideas with your blazing star.
Here are some of their most notable plant companions.
“Companion planting creates positive interactions in the garden.”University of Minnesota Extension
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A List of Best Liatris Companion Plants
Given that Liatris is a vertical perennial plant, it can be paired up with any annual or perennial plants in your garden landscape. Finding the right companion plants can be an exciting activity when planting liatris.
1. Ox-Eye Sunflower
Like Liatris, ox-eye sunflower or Heliopsis helianthoides is also a species in the Asteraceae family. It is also called rough oxeye, smooth oxeye, and false sunflower. The ox-eye sunflower is native to North America.
– Growing Season
It usually blooms with sunflower-like flowers in a bright yellow shade with brownish disc florets in early to mid-summer. an ox-eye sunflower grows upright that can display a perfect color combination and can be a companion plant for liatris.
– Specific Needs
Liatris and ox-eye sunflower both prefer full sun and can tolerate poor to average soil. Moreover, they are both hardies and can thrive with very little maintenance.
– Unique Characteristics
Aside from their lovely appearance together, they also share the same characteristics, such as attracting butterflies, bees, and other good pollinators. Liatris spicata, in particular, looks incredible grown next to ox-eye sunflowers.
2. Purple Coneflower
Purple coneflower or echinacea is a member of the daisy family of herbaceous perennial flowering plants, which are native to North America. These imposing plants with majestic flowers are considered essential to many traditional medicines.
– Growing Season
Purple coneflower seeds germinate best with cold stratification so it is ideal to plant them during the fall season. Once germinated, the seedlings can be given minimal care because this plant is extremely easy to grow.
– Specific Needs
In the wild, purple coneflower and liatris have the same growing conditions like inhabiting moist prairies and tolerating drought. Additionally, it loves the full sun, and grows in almost any kind of soil, so it will be easier to care for them together.
– Unique Characteristics
Its large, rounded, showy flowers in the colors purple, pink, white, and yellow, and its erect stems can nicely pair up with the vertical structure of liatris pycnostachya. The combination is sure to impress most garden enthusiasts.
3. Common Sneezeweed
Helenium autumnale is commonly known as common sneezeweed and large-flowered sneezeweed. It is from the Asteraceae family just like the blazing star.
– Growing Season
This perennial plant commonly blooms in late summer to fall. The blossoms are bright yellow, while the bright green leaves are used as snuff to induce sneezing, hence its name.
– Specific Needs
Common sneezeweed loves moist but well-draining soil and at least six hours of sunlight daily. However, unlike liatris, sneezeweed is not drought-tolerant. Instead, it prefers heavy moisture. You can boost its growth by giving it flower fertilizer during spring.
– Unique Characteristics
Common sneezeweed also stands up to almost 5 feet tall that can be paired up nicely with your liatris, and together they will flourish within your perennial garden while providing an eye-catching color combination that is very attractive.
4. Black-eyed Susan
Black-eyed Susan is an upright annual wildflower scientifically known as Rudbeckia hirta. It also belongs to the family Asteraceae.
– Growing Season
It is best to set new plants out during the spring season and expect blooms from the months of June to August. It requires very little care as it is a wildflower that brings nutrition to beneficial birds, butterflies, and bees.
– Specific Needs
Black-eyed Susan is easy to care for. It prefers full sun but can tolerate partial shade. It is not fussy about soil as long as it is well-draining.
While establishing, these plants need plenty of water, but once they are established, they can be drought resistant. Deadheading can make your plants’ blooming period longer.
– Unique Characteristics
Black-eyed Susan produces daisy-like flowers in a yellow shade and large leaves and grows up to three feet tall. Other common names are brown betty, yellow ox-eye daisy, golden Jerusalem, and poorland daisy.
5. Daylily
The genus Hemerocallis is commonly called daylily, an herbaceous perennial member of the family Asphodelaceae. However, the daylily is not a true lily. True lily flowers last for several days. Daylily flowers last only for a day, hence the name.
– Growing Season
It starts to bloom in mid-spring and comes in full bloom in the month of June. These are similar in appearance to true lilies, with their showy flowers and growth. As a result, care for both species is similar in nature.
– Specific Needs
To care for a daylily, remember that it is drought tolerant. Also, the plants are not easily affected by high temperatures, and they are not fussy and can thrive in any kind of soil.
They do best in full sun and require watering when the soil is dry. You may also want to apply mulch to help them retain moisture and help them thrive.
– Unique Characteristics
This plant is grown for its attractive and vibrant-colored flowers in shades of yellow, pink, purple, orange, and red, which will complement your Blazing star well. It reproduces by division, unlike true lilies that reproduce by forming bulbs.
6. Tickseed
Coreopsis, also known as tickseed and calliopsis, is from the family Asteraceae, a genus of flowering plants.
– Growing Season
Tickseed exhibits showy yellow-colored long-blooming flowers during summer. As it is a wildflower, caring for it is extremely easy. To boost its growth, add some compost to the soil.
– Specific Needs
Tickseed loves full sun, which makes it an ideal companion to sit beside your blazing star. It can also tolerate partial shade, but it will not flower as profusely. Tickseed prefers loamy or sandy soil but is not particular about soil quality as long as it is well-draining.
Newly planted tickseed needs to be watered regularly until it is established, but keep in mind to avoid waterlogging.
– Unique Characteristics
Tickseed is known to attract a variety of beneficial birds, butterflies, and bees. In traditional medicine, tickseed tea is used to relieve diarrhea.
7. Lamb’s Ear
Lamb’s ear or Stachys byzantine is also called wooly hedgenettle. It is a species of flowering plant from the Lamiaceae family that is native to Turkey.
– Growing Season
Lamb’s ear is typically planted during the spring season and it’s a fast grower. You can expect it to fill your garden by fall.
– Specific Needs
This sun-loving Lamb’s ear is a fast and easy grower. Provide it with dry to medium moisture soil but avoid overwatering. It can thrive in poor, slightly acidic soil. The trick is to cut back the flowering stems to encourage the plant to spread abundant foliage.
– Unique Characteristics
This evergreen ornamental plant produces tall and thick upright stems with reduced leaves and tiny light-purple flowers that will look interesting standing beside your liatris spicata.
Lamb’s ears are known for their attractive flowers and foliage. Aside from this, they are cultivated as drought-resistant groundcover.
8. Canada Anemone
Anemonastrum canadense or Canada anemone is from the Ranunculaceae family of herbaceous perennial flowering plants. They are often found in the wild, growing profusely near streams and rivers.
– Growing Season
Canada anemone is prized for its beautiful foliage and white flowers that bloom from late spring to summer. When grown with Liatris aspera or Liatris spicata, both plants will end up highlighting each other’s foliage and flowers as the seasons change.
– Specific Needs
It prefers partial shade to full sun and moist loamy or sandy soil. Grow Canada anemone with enough space between it and other plants because it spreads aggressively.
– Unique Characteristics
Canada anemone grows up to 12 to 24 inches in height, producing several white lovely flowers. These flowers attract butterflies and bees. This plant naturally inhabits lakeshores, meadows, and streambanks in North America.
9. Hyssopleaf Thoroughwort
Hyssopleaf thoroughwort is an herbaceous perennial wildflower native to North America. Its scientific name is Eupatorium hyssopifolium, which usually produces inflorescences bearing numerous tiny flower heads.
– Growing Season
Hyssopleaf thoroughwort can be a beneficial companion plant during the fall season as you grow Liatris in your flower garden. It loves the full sun and can attract good pollinators, such as bees, butterflies, and moths.
– Specific Needs
Hyssopleaf thoroughwort is pest- and disease-free. It thrives in moist, well-draining soil but can tolerate any variety of soil. It loves the full sun and can attract good pollinators, such as bees, butterflies, and moths. To prevent unwanted seedlings, it is recommended to cut back after the first frost.
– Unique Characteristics
Its flowers only contain fragrant white disc florets and do not have ray florets, but these blooms will still look lovely next to your plant. It spreads by multiplying its rhizomes underground.
Conclusion
Liatris is best to pair with rounded plant forms as these plant companions contrast its vertical growth.
You can rely on the following key points to remember significant information:
- It is good to choose a companion plant that shares the same growing condition as your liatris.
- Hyssopleaf thoroughwort and ox-eye sunflower attract pollinators.
- All of the plant companions mentioned in this list can actually make an excellent neighboring plant for your liatris.
- Daylily and purple coneflower provide a wide range of colors.
Combining liatris with other plant companions will make them glow and look best in a casual perennial bed.
