Native plants for a Cape Cod garden

There are many cultivars and color variations of this particular species of aster. When you go to garden centers you will often find these plants under the name Michaelmas daisies. Mind you, these “daisies” don’t look anything like the plant of origin. And here’s another trivia (or trivial?) item: At one point in time, New York State, where this plant is common, was known as New Belgium, and therefore the plant has novi-belgii in its moniker. The smooth leaves differentiate the species from new england aster. The flowers are not as good for cutting as those of the new england asters, as they are decidedly less showy and smaller, but they provide excellent color in the late summer and fall garden. They prefer sun but they will propagate on rhizomes in the shade garden as well – there they are MUCH taller (7 to 8 feet in my woodland garden) and the flowers are packed less densely together.