All the perennials (upto 16" in height) stated earlier in my post are deer resistant to deers residing at NY and PA. In order to broaden up the scope of this post, I am posting a general list of deer resistant perennials. I hope all the gardeners here in this forum will comment on this list if they had any experience(s) with their particular cultivars mentioning it's height, color (blue or purple only), if it is suitable for borders or not, if they encounter any deers etc. Deer Resistant Perennials (USDA hardiness, height/bloom color/period needs to be investigated) Acanthus Aconitum Agapanthus Agave Allium Amaryllis Aquilegia Artemisia Arum Astilbe Campanula Carex Centaurea Ceratostigma Clematis Cortaderia Crinum Crocosmia Delphinium Dicentra Digitalis Epimedium Euphorbia Ferns Festuca glauca Filipendula Gaillardia Geranium Helianthus Helichrysum Helleborus Hosta Iris Kniphofia Lavandula Leucanthemum x superbum Leucojum Liriope Lupinus Lychnis coronaria Melianthus Melissa Melittis Mentha Mirabilis Mysotis Narcissus Nepeta Origanum Paeonia Papaver Polygonatum Potentilla Pulmonaria Romneya coulteri Rudbeckia Salvia Satureja Scabiosa Sisyrinchium Tellima Thalictrum Tiarella Trillium Veratrum Vinca Yucca You would notice that Asters are not there. There may be some more individual cultivars from other species which are not inluded here. Good luck! Reference: "An illustrated guide to Perennials" by Prof. Marshall Craigmyle (re-printed in 2001 at UK, a good colorfull reference guide to over 1500 perennials)

Monkshood -- gives you the color, though the bloom doesn't come until late in the season. Super poisonous plant though, so be careful if you have kids and/or pets. Foxgloves -- maybe too much sun but they have plenty of height. Heliopsis -- sunflowers, will be plenty tall. Hollyhocks -- plenty of height but biennial. Delphinium -- can give you a nice blue/purple and some height. Lilium Lupines Verbascum -- plenty of color options. Filipendula -- probably the tallest of them all. Sort of like 6' tall astilbe. Monarda -- 5' height, attractive flowers, loves sun.

Hi Whaas, I've looked up some native plants that I grow, or hybrids of natives, and these are listed for z5 or WI. Sorry, I don't know about soil. Phlox divaricata Louisiana blue (purplish blue) blooms first in the spring and then phlox pilosa (pink & purple varieties). Princess Diana clematis (hot magenta, large flowering hybrid from crossing with native texensis), Monarda didyma (our native one is a dark mauve purple & listed for z5). I've read about native Viola pedata bird's foot violets and lots of clematis that are purple shades. There was a famous Polish breeder of clematis, Brother Stefan Franczak, so his hybrids would be cold hardy for you. Clematis on the Web lists his large growing "Polish Spirit" as deep purple blue, "General Sikorski" as mauve blue, "Emilia Plater" as blue violet and his pale "Blue Angel." Here is a link that might be useful: Article on Brother Stefan Franczak

ROFL! I wasn't gonna stop to post right now--need to finish cleaning the house for the swap, but when I just saw your second post I cracked up and HAD to! I can just see you trekking around out in the hills and plains with your library! The couple times I took a (small) reference book of some sort with me, I was always so busy going from thing to thing to thing, and always spotting the next thing to oooo and ahhhh at that I never stopped even once to stick my head in the book! No more book carrying for me! I'm really glad for digital cameras now, and took a bunch of pics on one of my hikes last September in Capitol Reef--planning to "identify" them when I got back home, but never even got around to that!!! Maybe I'll post pics some day! And last June when I was up at a couple Natl. Monuments in Nebraska I was playing flower lookie loo, and then when I went into one of the Visitor's Centers I found a WONDERFUL book one of the Rangers had put together with descriptions and pictures of all the local flowers, and I was able to definitely identify some of them down to the species. But I way agree with you! Getting as far as the genus definitely satisfies me most of the time! (But it's still fun wondering what species they might be!) The reason I was so cracking up about your two posts above, Mr. Penstemaniac, is because I immediately thought of the SEPARATE Penstemon germination guide on the Tom Clothier site! There aren't TOO many species of Penstemon, are there? A-J and K-Z! And I'm absolutely, positively certain this isn't ALL the species of Penstemon! I found the rydbergii last nite when I was looking to see if I could find pics of a Penstemon BUD that looked like that one! Discovered that while a LOT of people post pics of the flowers, the leaves, the plants, NOBODY posts pics of the BUDS! But while I was looking, I ran into the rydbergii, and it looked pretty close. Actually, we used to sell that one, but I don't remember ever seeing in in bud or bloom! I'm not familiar at all with procerus, so I googled it and found , and it sure looks like a good possibility to me! I think maybe you get the gold star on this one! I FINALLY got some of the Penstemon seed I collected a couple years ago along a fun little road called the Burr Trail just east of Boulder, Utah to germinate with my winter sowing this year! Based on pictures and where I got it, I THINK it may be P. utahensis, but will never know that for sure either. I really, really think winter sowing, where they get a lot of temperature variation, is better for seeds that need stratification than sticking them in the fridge where they get a bunch of cold all at once, and then warm up and stay warm. Had tried germinating this stuff with the fridge method a couple times, and it hadn't worked! Now I have the situation you have with the strictus! Tiny, tiny little seedlings that I'm trying to keep not-too-wet---and not-too-dry at the same time! Terrible balance to try to maintain till they get a little bit bigger and you can let them dry out almost the whole way before watering again. If these things make it, it'll be really interesting to see how they do as a cultivated plant! Good luck with your strictus! I have one, and they're pretty when they bloom, but they sure don't bloom for long. If you're gonna have a whole patch of them, it should be real pretty when they're blooming! Interestingly, I've never had any seedlings come up around mine---and seed very definitely does drop around it! I agree with you about the size/quantity of petals on most Erigerons, and was a little bit surprised to find that species, and a couple others, that looked closer to the pic than I was expecting. I think of Bellium as having wider petals than the pic shows, and the stems look too long for what I'd expect to see on minutum, but it's really hard to tell what the scale is in the pic. It'll be interesting to see if we can figure that one out with more pics! Laugh break over! I need to finish cleaning the house NOW while it's cold and icky outside, because if it gets nice outside again the house will be dirty for the swap! Back to work! Skybird