pbl_ge, I also purchased the Snowbanks from Bluestone last year (when they still sold them in sets of 3). I bought two sets of 3. I pinched maybe 3-4 times before July 4th and by the fall the plants were beautiful, about 4 feet tall, very full and impressive. I also particularly like the foliage on the plant as it grows. The plant is airy and "branchy" (if that is even a word) and with the light blue/green color definitely sticks out in the perennial bed. And in terms of flopping, mine only flopped after we got hit with Hurricane Irene (and that was more from the wind then the rain), but they even recovered from that. I think growing them close together helps them support each other as someone else mentioned above. What I would be careful of though is your placement. Man does this plant spread rapidly. This spring I had to divide up both my Boltonia and my Woods Blue Aster I also bought from Bluestone last year. 6 Boltonia plants last year -> ~easily 30+ multi stem plants this year (all doing great after the move). I had to move them all over the yard, even made a long hedge since I was out of space. I am guessing next year I will be begging people to take some of them from my yard. Same thing with my Woods Blue. 3 plants last year -> 27 plants this year. Again all doing well and filling in nicely. Good luck!

Well the diversity of answers on this question indicate that cultural conditions have everything to do with whether or not plants need support. Sure, some always do, some virtually never, but conditions of soil type, moisture, light, and wind exposure make a big difference. In my old garden, Jacob Cline was an upright plant which did not need any support (though I am not a staker/straightjacket gardener, and gentle leaning is perfectly OK with me). At the new place, with too much moisture and shade, it definitely flops. In dryish soil, Boltonia snowbank is pretty upright for me, but with irrigation tends to flop. There just is no substitute for your own garden and conditions. And one year may be different than the next..... I personally think there are better supports for Boltonia Snowbank than any Monarda. Choosing something that has the same season of interest might be nice if you are constructing a vignette for that season. I have a stand of Sedum 'Matrona' in front of one group of Boltonia, and they look great together. Any similar sedum would do the job, and the cultural conditions are similar. Grasses of almost any type are excellent supports for floppy neighbors. Pennisetums of any type are a good size for the taller asters. I love Boltonia 'Pink Beauty', but it is even much worse as a flopper than its white cousin. I have grown that wonderful floppy plant through Calamagrostis arundinacea brachytricha, and its shimmering lavendar blooms looked great with the mauvey inflorescences of the grass. Another great scaffold plant is Molinia 'Transparent' or 'Windspiel'. The pink boltonia flowers were displayed throughout the tall flowers of the Molinia, looking like a display of fireworks. Another great support for floppy Boltonias is one of the shorter shrubby asters. I really like Aster oblongifolius and its cultivars for this (October skies, Raydon's favorite). It is shrubby like a boxwood, and will provide contrasting color and similar season of bloom.

Yes, air conditioning can lower humidity. The problem is that the thermostat only turns it on due to temperature in most cases. Fortunately for more money, there are ways to address this issue, some ways are better than others. It's kind of like when you go buy a car and they tell you... do you want the moonlight option? Oh, moonlight sounds so nice. Yeah well that moonlight is going to cost you. Then you're driving down the road on a 100 degree day and it hits you that you also got a sun roof, LOL. Cost is the only downside to humidity control, when done properly.

Hi Dave, spring was quite wet for majority of WI. My point was that county data and definitely state data is not indicative to what one might get in their yard so its tough from a gardening perspective to see who has dry conditions for these types of summaries or even the drought monitor. Some areas of WI where getting 6" of rain at a crack so it was boosting totals significantly. For example some areas of southern WI got 10" of rain (flooding) in July whereas I was at 2.8". I'll take that any July eitherway. This isn't quite where I'm at but as you can see we're just shy of 19" precip (I'm even less) through August. A far cry from any record precipitation. We likely won't hit our average annual precip of 35" by end of year. So in my mind its actually a abnormally dry year for my direct area. For perspective I took zip code 48105 in MI and it shows 21.4" of precip but the drought monitor says its abnormally dry. Its all relative!