Joe Pye Weed (Eutrochium purpureum) is not a weed! It is a native plant that tolerates some shade and blooms late in the summer. This year there has been so much rain that the Joe Pye Weed is not looking quite itself. Even so, it is continuing to flower and attracts bees, butterflies and provide seeds for overwintering birds.
Joe Pye Weed will grow to five feet or more and it will increase. This clump is a little lazy and droopy because of all the rain, but I would be hard put to get my arms around it. It is a big clump! Catalogs will say they will grow 2-4 feet around, but it seems to me that given room it would just keep increasing. New shoots arrive every spring in my garden. I am at the point where I will have to move some plants – and give them to the garden clump plant sale next spring.
Four years ago I was in a garden center and I came upon a single variegated Joe Pye Weed. Of course, I had to have it. It also increases nicely and some of these plants will also be put in the spring plant sale. This plant gets more sun and is sturdier.
I have the compact version of this, is it called Little Joe? It doesn’t give much of a show, but after several years, I noticed that it put out two more versions of itself. Now I have three of them, but I sure wish they’d get bushier.
Robin – I’m afraid I planted these Joe Pye Weed’s long enough ago to name mine, but Little Joe is certainly another variety – which I do not have.
Pat