Also the Anemone x hybrida, Solidago, etc. Everything’s blooming early here in the Mid-Atlantic.
"Fall-Blooming Anemone." Not.
I teach an herbaceous plant i.d. and use course each fall and spring. By looking back at my plant lists, I can tell what was blooming when. I usually teach the asters at the end of September.
That’s going to be tough this year, since they are all BLOOMING RIGHT NOW dammit. This will be a great experiment in "does deadheading = rebloom" for many of the asters. Things like garden phlox (Phlox paniculata) are dependable post-deadheading rebloomers, but I can’t say I’ve ever needed to deadhead Asters to get another flush of blooms, since they bloom right before frost for us, then pffftttt anyway.
Great Fanny’s Aster, this is too early! (Sympyotrichum oblongifolium ‘Fanny’)
My source for perennial maintenance advice is Tracy DiSabato-Aust’s marvelous "The Well-Tended Perennial Garden." I’ve utilized her strategies for cutting back to both delay blooms and create a more compact plant. If I’d been thinking ahead (ha, ha!), a good whacking on some of these things might have fended off blooms for another month or so; or at least had something to look at when class starts at the end of August. But alas. At this point the best I can hope for is a sporadic bloom or two. At least I have lots of photos for lecture…
In Wisconsin, I had fall mums blooming at the end of May.
Right-o. In re-reading this post, I think I failed on the point that things are MONTHS early, not just a few weeks. The heat in early-mid spring was of sufficient duration that floral initiation for many species was profoundly impacted.
It’s the End Times. Stock your bunker.
I agree with the 1st poster about plants blooming earlier in Wisconsin. I have a client whose anemone is also blooming. I have drought stressed asters blooming as well. In fact I think my ragweed allergy which usually starts about mid August could be starting already. Maybe I’ll get lucky though and have my miscanthus floridus push out plumes this year!