Vernonia
Vernonia spp.
Special Features
Typically have lance-shaped or ovate leaves with serrated edges. Produce dense clusters of small vividly colored flowers atop stems in late summer or fall in purple, pink, or white depending on the species.
Plant Specifications
Our team will help you integrate this plant into your landscape design
Growing Vernonia on Martha's Vineyard
Vernonia noveboracensis, the New York ironweed, is a dramatic tall native perennial for Martha's Vineyard's moist sunny borders and naturalistic meadow gardens, producing heads of intensely vivid purple flowers in August and September that carry the deepest purple available in the native perennial palette and support an extraordinary diversity of late-season native bees and migrating monarch butterflies. It thrives in the moist to average soils of full-sun to lightly shaded borders throughout the island and tolerates the maritime humidity characteristic of Vineyard growing conditions without the fungal issues that trouble many other tall perennials in the same conditions. Its self-supporting, bold habit suits it to the back of large perennial borders on estate properties in West Tisbury and the naturalistic meadow programs of larger Edgartown grounds.
Deer resistance is generally reliable. Estate Care professionals value ironweed as an ecological showpiece in native border programs where late-season pollinator habitat and dramatic flower impact are equally prioritized.
