One of the tallest perennials in my garden is New York ironweed, Vernonia noveboracensis, but basically my knowledge of the genus starts and ends there. Or at least it did until just recently, when Mt. Cuba Center, the renown native plant garden and research institution, published the results of its four-year trial of a range of ironweeds—powerful plants that pollinators love…and deer generally don’t. 

Sam Hoadley, the manager of horticultural research at Mt. Cuba Center in Delaware, returns to the program today to talk about what he and the team there learned in their multi-year trial of the plants called ironweeds, native perennials in the genus Vernonia. I always look forward to visits from Sam, and to the in-depth reports that result from each genus of plants that Mt. Cuba studies…including this latest one. 

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