Blue Mistflower

Description

Botanical Name:  Conoclinium coelestinum

Common Name:  Blue Mist Ageratum, Blue Boneset, Blue Mistflower, Wild Ageratum

Description:  Beautiful perennial native to Texas and Louisiana. Quickly grows 2-3′ tall x 2-3′ wide. Native habitat is wood margins, stream banks, low woods, wet meadows, ditches. Blue Mistflower features showy powder-blue spider-like flowers at the ends of the stems from mid summer to mid fall. The flowers are excellent for cutting. Its serrated heart-shaped leaves remain green in color throughout the warm season. Can grow in sun, part sun, or part shade. Blue mistflower is good as a border plant or as a colonizing groundcover. The fluffy-edged flowers are a magnet for late-season butterflies and bees especially native bees. along with monarchs, sulphurs, buckeyes, and more. Long- and short-tongued bees, flower flies, moths, and beetles all can be found nectaring.

Is perfect for your Integrated Pest Management program because it attracts the good bugs like ladybugs, parasitic wasps, praying mantis, etc. Excellent as a border plant or colonizing groundcover. Easily pulled up if it strays into unwanted parts of your garden. Grows great in garden beds or in containers. This is an adaptable wildflower that grows in full sun if sufficient moisture is present.  Established plants tolerate drought but in dry sites, plants may fare best in light shade. Can be divided to get more plants. Deer resistant. Is great for your rain garden. Host plant to the Lined Ruby Tiger Moth (Phragmatobia lineata) and the Clymene moth.

Soil requirements:  Moist loam, sand, or clay.

This plant in 1-gallon containers is 8-15″ tall and wide.

Interesting Tidbit:  Blue Mistflower contains alkaloids that some species of male butterflies need to make pheromones.  The alkaloid content, however, makes plants bitter and unpalatable to deer and other herbivores.

Hardiness Zone 5 – 9