When it comes to attracting monarch butterflies for nectaring, meadow blazing star (Liatris ligulistylus) wins hands down! This patch had 15 monarchs on it before I got close to take a picture.

Meadow blazing star will grow in seasonally damp, medium, or slightly dry sites but it prefers loam to sandy loam soil with a good amount of organic material (not a fan of heavy clay). While it does best in full sun this is one of the better blazing stars for yards with partial shade.

If you asked someone to draw a flower, what would it look like? It would probably resemble a daisy, or maybe a tulip, right? What it wouldn’t look like is the strangely fleshy, three-pointed flower of Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense).

In that same drawing, the flower would probably be shown standing proudly erect, basking in the sunlight like the “day’s eye,” which incidentally is the origin of the word daisy. You probably wouldn’t draw a flower hidden under large leaves, slumping messily into the soil.

But wild ginger is not your typical flower. It doesn’t even have petals!