Blue mist is a butterfly magnet!!! It does spread quickly and may become a pest though I searched the Illinois invasive species page and didn't find it.

Here's more information about starting seeds.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

That is a very pretty wildflower. I wouldn't mind growing some, but zone 5 might be pushing it. Apparently it reseeds prolifically but is easy to pull up? Because it is a native plant I don't think it would ever be classifed as a noxious invasive.

I found a nursery that sells it - see link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.nichegardens.com/catalog/item.php?id=1335

dirtgirl, follow the below link to the IL wildflowers page on Conoclinium coelestinum. It has a lot of information on the plant. I can't however, find a source for seeds.

Here is a link that might be useful: IL wildflowers

terryr,
absolutely marvelous link!
Thanks for posting that one. The mistflower I have seen here has a shade of blue that I can only describe as "electric chicory". I first saw a clump next to a roadside about two years ago and I was immediately thinking Whoa, what is THAT?? I happened across a bit more just a few weeks past, but like I said, when I went back to check on seeds the whole bunch had been mowed. That seems to be a recurring thing here. Our roadsides and right of ways usually harbor the last remnants of native prairie and other plants, but the policy of keeping everything "cleaned up" never gives them a chance to get firmly established.
Unfortunately , all this mowing is also taking a toll on ground nesting birds as well.

Wait a minute dirtgirl, you're in IL and I'm in IL, I know I'm a lot more northern than you, but still. Around here, they're not doing all the mowing so that the ground nesting birds get a chance to do something. Is this your county or a farmer that's mowing? Jeepers, contact them and tell them what you've found and ask if they'd leave it for awhile and why. Or ask permission to dig. If they're mowing it, then obviously, to you and me, they don't care.

I also found it at Prairie Nursery.

Here is a link that might be useful: Prairie Nursery

THe mowing is both county and farmers. It's kinda like a rural adopt-a-mile program around here...if a corner near your farm is getting grown up to where it;s a hazard, the farmer usually gets out the sickle mower and cuts it, as well as the mile or two either direction. THe rest the coutny tries to get to. I have seen the local Soil & Water Conservation office state SEVERAL times in bulletins that mowing needs to cease by sometime in June or
July to allow for nesting, but it doesn't matter-people complain that their township isn't doing what their taxes are paid to do, which is keep the roads down. I say just trim around crossroads and any road where timeets another for visibility issues and leave the rest. It isn't hurting anything. Of course deer could be right next to the road and you would not see them in time...
I've got my eyes on a big patch of wild indigo right now too, and I saw a mowing crew out just this morning-when I DID NOT HAVE TIME TO STOP AND GRAB SOME. I am hoping it was too far up the right of way for them to have mowed it off.

I have some growing in one of my flower beds. A couple of years ago I found them growing in my yard. Have no idea where they came from. The butterflies love them. Mine got about 2 1/2 feet tall and bloomed. With the hot weather they started looking really bad. I cut them back to about 8 inches. Now they are about 18 inches tall and in full bloom again. They do spread, but I just pull them up and plant somewhere else.

The farmers up here are actually being pretty good about not mowing. Some more so than others. The worst is not mowing on the back roads at stop signs. Scares the cr@p out of me every time I approach one. All they need to do is mow at the corners, so people not in semi's can see if somebody is coming and not going to stop. That happens way too much up here. They put in a stop sign going south and north bound on a county double E road up here, only because a grain companies trucks never stop at the signs going east or west. I can't tell you how many times I've stopped, I can go, but here comes a semi barreling down the road with no intention of stopping.

Wild indigo...Baptisia? Good luck on getting some! Hope hope hope....lol.....

kwilson...please oh please oh please...?
I'll send you a note, ok?

Terryr,
sounds like how things are here. If there isn't a wall of corn planted right up to the roadside, by August the pigweed and ragweed and other stuff is so high you have to take a chance and ease out there on country roads-stop sign or not. We always look for the oncoming wall of dust behind an approaching vehicle--one good thing about gravel roads I guess. And the gravel here isn't just your standard limestone, it's this wonderful river pebble mix which gives you the eerie feeling that you are cruising along on a bed of ball bearings. Which is mightily unsuitable stuff for sudden turns, swerves and stops.

The indigo...yep, it's prairie false indigo or white wild indigo-baptisia alba.
I have quite a few plants around that I have been watching over the summer, but there is something drilling into them and eating the seeds. I don't know if it's a weevil going in from the outside or something that was laid as an egg on the flower and developed from within but all the fruits I've picked have tiny perfect holes in them and weigh next to nothing.
This plant is actually doing quite well around here and I suspect some wonderful person is quietly seeding the roadsides and railroad right of ways because all sorts of prairie stuff is popping up in the last 3 years.

On a whim, I bought two TINY plants of this, last year, from a seller on Ebay (who I wouldn't recommend as she's the nastiest creature this side of hell). They were miniscule and almost dead when I received them. I tossed them into my mixed shrub/prairie flower border out front and thought "Well, that's the last I'll see of THOSE."

Imagine my delight and surprise this September when two HUGE clumps of these gorgeous flowers--so lovely next to the goldenrod and pink buddleia--suddenly took center stage. They're nearly stopping traffic (well, on the sidewalk, at least ;-) they're so loaded with bloom.

They looked so vigorous that I even hacked right into the middle of the bigger clump (on a hot day, no less. Sometimes the "devil" gets in me!) to move a clump to an empty spot further down the sidewalk...and with just some conscientious watering for a week or two, they are thriving and still blooming, hardly missing a beat.

I imagine this vigor doe foretell of some invasiveness, but they're so lovely I don't think I'll mind moving clumps around. I've got a big yard and there's plenty of room for more of these.