About ten years ago I got interested in native plants and ironweeds were one of the species that caught my interest. I just ended up with one seedling. It grew a few feet the first year and didn’t bloom. I was disappointed in it and just plopped it into a corner of the garden. The next year there was a Jack-and-the-Beanstalk moment when this plant started climbing toward the sky. It reached about eight feet tall before it bloomed with bright yellow flowers.
I’ve learned to pinch the stems back in June or July to keep them shorter and stronger so I don’t have to stake them. My near-future plans for this plant are to water it because it is wilty right now during our Mediterranean summer. I don’t have room for more of these plants so I’ll just enjoy the one I have. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to seed around at all, so it isn’t invasive like some of my seed experiment progeny.