Tom's Life Bits

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===== Joe Pye loves late summer =====

By Catherine Bollinger, CorrespondentComment on this story
The Joe Pye weed in my front border is strutting its stuff right on schedule. It always opens its rosy-mauve flowers just as the August heat drives all sane gardeners indoors for most of the day. I have two kinds of Joe Pye weed. The native species pops up here and there along my creek, growing 8 feet tall with pale pink flowers that butterflies flock around.

The fancier cultivar I grow up front tops out around 6 feet. Its butterfly-magnet flowers are a much deeper pink, and the stems are a dramatic purple-red. I'd tell you the species names, but, frankly, I gave myself a headache trying to figure out what the botanists have done to this genus of plants. If you want one, just ask for Joe Pye weed. Everyone will know what you're talking about.

I don't know who put "weed" into its name, because this magnificent native perennial effectively competes with any flower in the garden. Mine stands in front of a large purple loropetalum shrub and is fronted by an aster and a goldenrod that should begin blooming any minute now. The butterflies that stop to taste Joe's flowers add additional color and movement.

The plant is said to be named for Joe Pye, a Native American who purportedly cured typhus with an extract made from this plant. Although I can't attest to its medicinal powers, I can guarantee that your late summer landscape will improve with a little help from Joe Pye.

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Exuberant Joe Pye weed is a butterfly magnet.

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