The Beautiful Flowering Ground Cover To Plant For Gorgeous Purple And Blue Blooms

Imagine looking out your window on a warm summer's morning, and being greeted with a mass of fuzzy purple and blue blooms covering your yard. Better yet, imagine the satisfaction in knowing that the ground cover that's giving you this visual pleasure is actually native to much of eastern North America, and can also keep weeds from taking over, thanks to its aggressive growth. That's why planting blue mistflower as a ground cover is something you might want to try. 

Blue mistflower (Conoclinium coelestinum) is a member of the daisy family, and has showy purple or blue flowers that appear in clusters in summer. These gorgeous flowers can last for weeks, often blooming until your first frost. The flowers look fluffy from the distance, adding to this plant's appeal. It can be grown in USDA hardiness zones 5 through 10 and was named 2024 plant of the year by The Georgia Native Plant Society. The only thing you have to be mindful of when growing this in your yard is that it can spread rather aggressively. So give it enough room to expand, and control the growth by trimming it back periodically, if necessary.

Blue mistflower can be planted in full sun or part shade. This makes it ideal for growing along sunny borders, or even in woodland settings where it can get plenty of dappled light. It prefers moist soils, and can handle occasional flooding, so you could even grow it around a pond or other natural water source. In fact, blue mistflower is one of many plants that will flood your rain garden with abundance.

If you're growing blue mistflower as a ground cover, you'll need to be aware that it can reach a height of up to 3 feet. But you can control its vertical growth by pruning off one-third of the top in early summer, just before the flower buds start to develop. This will result in your plant flowering on shorter stems, making it much more compact. Blue mistflower spreads by underground rhizomes, but will also self-seed itself. So, you might have to watch out for seedlings popping up elsewhere in your yard and remove them as needed. Alternatively, you can simply cut off the seed heads before they mature. Blue mistflower also attracts pollinators to your yard, as many species of butterflies, including monarchs, painted ladies, and skippers, feed on the nectar of the blooms. You'll also find that birds will love the seeds. Finally, if you're trying to establish a native meadow, you might consider pairing your blue mistflower with other self-seeding flowers that will effortlessly cover your backyard.