Heart leaved wood aster, or white wood aster, is a native flower (sort of in the aster family)*.  It blooms in late August through to frost.  The flowers are small, white, with purple or yellow centers.  It adores dry shade, but is equally content in full sun (though the leaves get burnt).  It spreads by runners and will outcompete most garden plants.  We have a lot of it.  The old tennis court is covered with it.  Last year we gave up mowing the mossy area underneath the big Japanese Maple, the Douglas Spruce, and the Copper Beech.  No point in it, it is very dark and composed mostly of blanket moss.  Or was….It is now a gorgeous carpet of white, looking for all the world like a massive drift of snow, beneath the purple leaved trees.  Quite impressive!

 

*The botanists are having too much fun taking this family apart and putting it back together, a group of frustrated divorce lawyers!