Raydon’s Favorite aster

 

The morning sun lights up the flowers of ‘Raydon’s Favorite’ aster. I planted this aster a few years ago when I was looking for some purple to color the fall landscape, and as an homage to the weedy looking but briefly beautiful local purple aster. I planted ‘Raydon’s Favorite’ along with New England aster ‘Purple Dome’ and New York aster ‘Professor Anton Kippenberg’ and Aster x frikartii ‘Monch’. The professor was my favorite for color, but quickly succumbed to wilt, to my great disappointment. ‘Purple Dome’ is still in my garden although I’m not fond of the color or its very brief bloom season. ‘Monch’ is by far the longest blooming of those I tried, blooming from June to frost. ‘Raydon’s Favorite’ is the most evocative of the native asters but with a less weedy appearance, reliably perennial (the local aster is biennial or short-lived perennial), with similar color and bloom season. It took me a while to discover that Raydon is Texas horticulturalist Raydon Alexander, who was instrumental in making this variety commercially available. His research suggests that this variety originated in Tennessee. https://gardenrant.com/2016/03/when-the-aster-hitched-a-ride.html