Category: Native plants of NC

Native Plants for Fall Interest: Blue Star (Amsonia)

On By durhammastergardenersIn native plants, Native plants of NC, plant propagation, Uncategorized

By Astrid Cook-Dail, NC State Extension Master GardenerSM volunteer of Durham County

It may still be too hot and humid to think about digging planting holes, but fall is right around the corner! Now is a great time to sit in the cool air conditioning and start planning what new plants you’ll add to your garden in the next few months as the temperatures start cooling off. Hopefully by the end of this post, Blue Star (Amsonia) will be on that list.

A lush green plant with clusters of small, star-shaped white flowers against a natural backdrop.
Close-up view of slender, green, needle-like leaves on a bushy plant.
A dense bush with yellow-green foliage growing near a parking area, surrounded by a backdrop of trees.

Bluestar offers unparalleled landscape interest for three seasons of the year. At left: Spring brings gorgeous blue flower clusters adored by pollinators. Middle: Summer highlights the fine foliage texture and shrub-like structure of the plant. At right: The plant glows gold as the weather cools and we head into fall. (Image credit: Cathy Dewitt; Andrea Laine; Jim Robbins)

The Amsonia genus contains multiple species suitable for NC Piedmont gardens. All feature multi-season interest as well as durability for our unpredictable weather. It is the epitome of a low-maintenance plant while also having a naturally tidy habit and reinvigorating the landscape with its lovely golden color just as summer perennials are winding down for the year. What’s more, pollinators adore the blossoms, deer are unlikely to browse it, and it is extremely simple to propagate!

Botanical Overview

Blue Star is in the dogbane or Apocynaceae family (also home to milkweeds), and like many of the members of this family, it has a milky latex sap. Eastern Bluestar (Amsonia tabernaemontana) is native to the central and southern US; meanwhile, other species like Amsonia hubrichtii and Amsonia ciliata are native to the central US.

Blue Star is a native herbaceous perennial; it dies back above the soil at frost and regrows from the crown in early spring. Clusters of light blue flowers bloom atop a 2-3′ mound of tidy rounded foliage in April to May. When the flowers die back, they reveal finely textured foliage that stays lush and green despite the heat and humidity of summer. Then, it is ready to steal the show again in late October and November when the weather cools.

Cluster of delicate white and purple flowers with slender green leaves in a natural setting.

Close-up of the flowers on Arkansas Bluestar (Amsonia hubrichtii). (Image credit: Plant Toolbox [CC BY-SA 3.0])

Cultivation and Care

Blue Star holds an erect, mounded shape in well-drained soils and full sun to part shade conditions. While it prefers fertile soils with organic matter, it tolerates a variety of soils common in central NC. To encourage a tidy form, trim the plant back lightly after spring blooming.

Planting and Propagation

Like many herbaceous perennials, new Blue Star plants are best added to the garden in spring or fall, and watered regularly for the first several weeks until establishment. When trimming the plant back in spring, snip a few softwood stem tips and propagate the plant easily by rooting cuttings in well-drained potting soil.

A Few More Fall-Interest Natives

A lush green plant with many clusters of small purple berries, growing against a wooden fence.

American Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) has a natural arching shape that, along with its striking berries, provide structural interest in the fall garden. (Image credit: Susan Strine)

Additional Reading and Resources:

NC Plant Toolbox to search for additional native plants with fall interest

Native Notes: Climbing Aster

Plant Goldenrod for Outstanding Fall Color

Virginia Creeper: Up or Down It’s the Perfect Vine for Gardens

Native Fall Foliage Color in the Piedmont

Deer-Resistant Native Gardening

University of Florida IFAS CALS on propagating via softwood cuttings

Edited by Astrid Cook-Dail, NC State Extension Master GardenerSM volunteer of Durham County

Durham’s 2026 Master Gardener Volunteer Plant Sale: Community & Innovation Unite

On By durhammastergardenersIn gardening education, gardening in NC, Miniature vegetables, Native plants of NC, Plant sale, Uncategorized

By Melinda Heigel, with Lissa Lutz, Lisa Nadler, and Bev Tisci, NC State Extension Master GardenerSM volunteers of Durham County

Our annual Friends of Durham County Master Gardener plant sale is in the books! If you joined us on April 11th for the big event, we want to offer you a little behind the scenes intel about what it takes to bring you some of the gorgeous plants you purchased and revisit the day through the stunning images of our Extension Master GardenerSM volunteer and photojournalist Allie Mullin. If you weren’t there, we want to whet your appetite for 2027!

A large group of diverse individuals smiling together in an indoor setting, wearing green aprons, standing in front of tables filled with various plants in pots.

Just a fraction of the Extension Master Gardener volunteers responsible for bringing you over 4,000 plants at our recent annual plant sale. Here, the group is smiling and excited to serve just minutes before the sale begins. (Image credit: Allie Mullin)

Plant Sale Success: It’s All in the Setup

Two women examining plant information while standing in front of a display of potted plants.
A woman carrying a tray of young plants in plastic pots, walking through a corridor with wooden doors and plant displays.
A woman with long, braided hair and a flower accessory inspects a tray of green plants in small pots. She wears a denim jacket over a green shirt and appears focused on the plants.
A group of people engaged in gardening activities indoors, examining plants. Two individuals are closely inspecting a plant while others are chatting in the background.
Two women smiling and posing together in a community gardening space, surrounded by plants.
A person in a green apron examining plants in pots at a plant nursery, with a window in the background and tables displaying more plants.

Volunteers transported, unloaded, set up, and labeled all the plants in just one day prior to the sale. (Image credit: Allie Mullin)

It literally takes a community of Extension Master Gardener volunteers to put on a blockbuster plant sale. Over 75 volunteers and multiple teams with expertise in every imaginable area spent a year preparing for one Saturday-morning event! Plant sale Co-Chair Lissa Lutz credits the success of this year’s event to these volunteers. As a dedicated, long-time coordinator of the sale, she shared this year saw “a core group of seasoned veterans but also new ideas and tremendous depth of expertise offered by new team members. A few of their novel approaches and accomplishments for the 2026 sale included the following. (To be sure, there were tons more….)

  • The Vegetable Team offered more plants for sale than ever before and introduced new compact varieties to work in smaller-sized environments.
  • The Houseplants Team tweaked their plant curation and offered the most appropriate plants–all in unique pots.
  • The Native Plant Team had a dedicated group of seed starters who produced an astonishing selection of native plants, many from locally collected seeds.
  • The Propagation Team multiplied the bounty and contributed unique, well-tended plants to this year’s event.
  • The Plant Divisions Team potted up countless robust, consistent quality flats.
  • The Communications Teams got out the word in advance about our inventory so shoppers could make a wish list.
  • Both the Volunteer Management and Hospitality Teams made sure that our plant pros were fresh, available, and standing by to help you in any way.
  • The Checkout Team efficiently checked out shoppers with a new pricing system based on container size that hopefully simplified the customer experience.

Additional Innovations that Made the 2026 Plant Sale Sizzle

A person holding plant information sheets, showcasing various flowers with descriptions, indoor setting with a white brick wall and greenery in the background.
A woman wearing a green apron stands by a table with potted plants, engaging with two people in a gardening workshop setting.

(Left to right) This year we wanted you to have a better look at what you were buying. Clearer plant signs with photos and easy-to-read details enhanced the shoppers’ experience. Our plant sale Co-Chair Marcia Kirinus was dedicated solely to ensuring we were offering the best plants possible. (Image credit: Allie Mullin)

  • Enhanced Signage. We introduced new signage throughout the sale that gave our shoppers more consistent information on all plants and veggies complete with growing conditions, interesting plant facts, and photos of mature/blooming specimens. We even designated keystone plants, a sub-category of native plants that are essential to the local food web.
  • Quality Assurance Leader. Plant sale Co-Chair Marcia Kirinus filled a new role this year as our quality assurance “czar.” With her years of experience in professional and research greenhouses along with her Master Gardner volunteer bona fides, she shared her knowledge with all our our volunteer growers to produce the highest quality plants. This included setting up light carts for seed starting to the final trimming and pruning to make each plant look its best. She was instrumental in teaching all seed starters, new and experienced, how to grow the healthiest, hardiest plants.
  • Customer service enhancements. More volunteer runners helped shoppers to their cars with their plants. Another novel idea? The plant parking lot. We also introduced a new holding area where shoppers could “park” plants they intended to buy while they continued to browse and shop.

Sale Day Excitement

If you know Carly Simon’s tune “Anticipation,” hum it to yourself when surveying the photos below. While the line for the sale lived up to its reputation (our first customer arrived at 8:30 am for the 10:00 am start), many Extension Master Gardener volunteers were on hand to check lists of plants for our customers, hand out free seeds, answer a host of gardening inquires, and keep the crowd pumped up.

There were all sorts of folks–those with a printed and highlighted list of plants they wanted to take home, new gardeners looking to build a landscape, veggie lovers searching for just the right tomato, and simply the plant curious. Those in line enjoyed the beauty of our award-winning Demo Garden and wanted to find some of the garden specimens inside at the sale to take home. Without doubt, the mood was celebratory for the more than 320 community members who showed up to shop for plants and support our mission.

What those in line couldn’t see was the excitement of the volunteers huddling up for one last briefing before the sale began. Our plant sale volunteers, (Volunteer Management Team leader Lisa Nadler rocking her signature whirligig hat below) had efficiently staged over 4,000 plants in one day, and Nadler placed our plant experts strategically throughout the sale to assist you. And of course, all those plants lined up and ready to make their debut.

A long line of people wrapping around a garden. People are holding cardboard boxes. Two men sitting in an ornamental garden setting at an info table with a sign reading "Ask A Master Gardener." A smiling woman standing in a line. A group of diverse people wearing aprons being briefed by a woman in a propeller hat. A table with green table cloth full of lush green vegetable plants.

(Image credit: Allie Mullin)

Ready, Set, Shop!

A man surrounded by lush green plants at a plant sale holds a cardboard box. A smiling woman holding a tray of potted green plants. A group of people gathered around tables indoors shopping for potted plants. A woman in a hijab admiring plants with two women in the background looking on. Volunteer sit at a table, one giving a woman holding a box of plants a thumbs up sign. Two women in green aprons behind a table talking with a woman on the opposite side of table. Smiling woman in green apron talkings with another woman.

Full boxes and full hearts. Volunteers and community shoppers interact at the sale. (Lower right) Vegetable Team leader Bev Tisci shares her expertise and the joy of growing edibles. (Image credit: Allie Mullin)

As the sale began, the atmosphere inside the building was electric with smiles all around. As you stepped inside, the fantastic scents of the veggie and herb room tickled your nose long before you reached its threshold. The vast abundance of plants, some of which were in full spring bloom, were a “masterpiece for the eyes” according to one native plant fan.

Bev Tisci, Leader of the Veggie Team and Seed Starters Group had a ball educating community members about growing edibles and introducing the new mini-vegetables. After consulting with one shopper who picked up a couple of plants and went on her way, Tisci recalled the woman later returned and jokingly yelled out to her, “I used to like you!” Puzzled, Tisci asked, “Oh, no! What did I do?” The laughing shopper showed her a box brimming with plants–far more than she’d ever intended to purchase. Like all plant lovers, she just couldn’t resist and left the sale excited about all the vegetables she be eating later this summer.

The Proof is in the Plants–and People

A woman wearing a light blue shirt is examining small potted plants on a table in a brightly lit room, while others are visible in the background.
Sign on the door of the Durham County Agriculture Building indicating that the plant sale is over, thanking visitors, and stating 'See you next year!'

(Left to right) Plant sale Co-Chair Lissa Lutz busy prepping for the sale. After a banner sell-out, we closed the 2026 sale with gratitude. (Image credit: Allie Mullin)

Thanks to both our community of Extension Master Gardener volunteers and the overwhelming support of Durham plant enthusiasts, this year’s event was the most successful yet. The proceeds of the sale will fund our work of providing research-based gardening education to the residents of Durham County and beyond. Reflecting on the event since the dust has settled, Co-Chair Lissa Lutz, put it this way:

“The plant sale really exemplifies the spirit of the Master Gardener community, with so many people coming together in so many different ways, each offering time and talents that together creates a whole that is bigger than the sum of its parts. It is for this reason that I continue to play a role in this crazy-amazing event!”

We can’t wait to see you at next spring’s sale. Keep an eye out on our website’s plant sale tab on our menu where we’ll be posting our 2027 date.

Resources and Additional Information

Keystone Plants From Our 2026 Plant Sale

Mini or Compact Vegetables

3-Part Series: Starting Seeds Indoors with a Light Cart–Article 1, Article 2, Article 3

Edited by Melinda Heigel, NC State Extension Master Gardener SM volunteer of Durham County

Article Short Link https://wp.me/p2nIr1-7ox