Symphyotrichum laeve 'Glow in the Dark'

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Price:  £7.50 –+ Add to Basket Family:  Asteraceae Main Season:  Autumn Flower Colour:  Pink Leaf Colour:  Brown/Purple/Red Foliage:  Deciduous Position:  Sun Soil Type:  Ordinary, medium loam Height:  1.2m to 1.8m (4' to 6') Peat Free?  Yes Hardiness Guide:  RHS H7 minimum at least -20C Pot Size:  2L Availability:      Approx. 2 in stock View our Pot Size guide:

An outstanding recent introduction with purple flushed deep green leaves and heads of light pink flowers in autumn to 1.2m. Reasonably self-supporting!

The frilly pink flowers really do glow in amongst the deep purple foliage and like other asters of this type the flowers seem to be at their best at dusk.

We first saw this plant growing with a blue flowered Aconitum, both in full flower, in late September and it certainly makes a pleasant change to many of the other autumn flowers that you see.  Add some Panicum or Miscanthus to the mix and you have the beginnings of a good modern herbaceous border.

As with many of these autumn flowering daisies you can give this plant a trim in mid-spring to encourage a lower growing, more branched habit that is less likely to flop at flowering time.  This can be well worth doing if you have a very fertile soil or the site is shaded at all.  Cut the new growth back by about one third in May.

Found and named by Brian Ellis in 2010.

Syn. Aster 'Glow in the Dark'.