I love Liatris. L. spicata is the one most often seen in the trade and it's a native prairie flower. Sometimes it's helpful to know where something comes from when trying to figure out cultural requirements or why it does what it does. Liatris is pretty adaptable though. I have a hard time keeping them from reseeding in my bog half the yard away! They also increase vegetatively through many additional corms each year. They're tough, I bet yours come back nicely. Kobold is the "fluffy" L. spicata cultivar most people grow. I grow Liatris Floristan Purple with Echinacea White Swan and Echinops Ritro on one end of a bed and Floristan White with Echinacea Magnus and Echinops Arctic Glow on the other end. Looks pretty cool. I also grow/collect every native species Liatris I can get my hands on. Prairie Nursery has many. They all have subtle differences in flower-form and color, also varying bloom times. My current favorite is L. aspera, that could easily change in the next 10 seconds though ;o). Some people don't like the way they look when they're done flowering but I really like Liatris. I don't think I enjoy them half as much as the gold finches and monarchs do though!

Lovefornature, My bed with the liatris is mostly yellows, whites, and purples. The purples are a bit of a hodgepodge of reddish to bluish purples. That is always the problem with purple. This half-circle bed is big enough so that the reddish ones can be placed on the left and the bluer ones are kept to the right side. I have a variegated miscanthus grass (green and white) and several burning bushes in the background, along with a high pruned and heavily thinned crabapple tree in the center. Underplantings include several clumps of purple coneflower, a large purple daylily which is very similar in color to the Kobold, a white daylily (which means in dl speak slightly yellow), yellow trumpet lilies (quite tall), several Moonshine (yellow) yarrows (also tall), a big clump of balloon flowers (blue purple), two varieties of bellflower (lighter blue purple to darker blue purple), lactiflora and glomerata (milky and clustered), several Purple Dome asters for fall color, a large stand of Becky Shasta daisies, a small clump (3 plants and still small after 3 seasons) of digitalis grandiflora (soft yellow), some Moonshine coreopis, an edging to the right front of sedum mediovariegata (yellow variegated), and sedum Frosty Morn (white & green variegated) to the rear around the miscanthus, and probably a half dozen other plants I forgot. If it were me planting your area, I would plant the clear bright red Jacob Kline monarda somewhere else in your garden. The rest of your selections would work well together with the liatris. Purples and bright red can work together and be very striking, but you need to get the combo exactly right, usually with a nice quantity of dark, chartreuse, or bronzy foliage. Also the monarda is a fast grower and your bed could quickly become the "red garden". Raspberry Wine monarda, which someone else mentioned, would work well I think with liatris.

I think what I have is Liatris spicata..well I have 'Kobold' but I also have the non-dwarf version. I did plant the white version too, but unfortunately it rotted out in our heavy soil last year with all the rain. That is the one thing I don't like about them; in our heavy clay soil, I have had trouble keeping them healthy with all the rain we've been getting the last 2 years. Our soil is amended, but it just isn't enough. Also, I fertilized them too much last year, and the tall liatris flopped right over. Next year I'll try either skipping the fertilizer for it right away, or I'll give it a dose in spring and then be done with it. My husband calls it "the monster plant" because it really is a strong grower and quite tall and very striking. I think it would make the best statement with 2 or 3 plants planted near each other. The color can be very flourescent. If you get the full sized version, it probably won't grow very tall its first year. Wait until the next year and it'll have a boom.

Thanks very much for all of your helpful comments. I would like to add that this plant was in very poor soil. So light and sandy that it was difficult to get it wet. Maybe that was the problem, not enough moisture. Because it did not bloom I added a couple scoops of compost blended with garden soil around the base each year. I loosely termed this 'amending. I have a prime place for this plant and I think having a few of them would be best, so I will divide it. I notice there is considerable 'green' on the little 'corms'. Should they be re-planted so the green part is above ground? Sort of just pressing them in the soil? I am new at this and need all the help I can get. Thank you all. P.S. I am in West Ottawa and we did have torrential rains, but this plant is sheltered by an overhang of my roof in a front garden. It is south facing and gets full sun. R.