As it blooms for a long time towards the end of summer, Gateway Joe-Pye Weed provides important neighborhood pollinators with essential nutrients when little else is blooming. This is a native cultivar that grows quickly and easily, and naturalizes well, rarely bothered by deer. It produces huge, thick clouds of blooms that hover over the foliage, emphasized by pretty wine-colored stems. Even before and after the blooms appear, the richly colored, lush foliage is the perfect backdrop for perennial flowers in a garden border. The blooms and stems are lovely in cut and dried bouquets. It's a delightful cultivar, named by our friends at North Creek Nursery. Eupatorium maculatum 'Gateway'