That is an incredible fall picture of your Amonsia...stunning.

I did plant one a few years ago but it did not receive enough sunlight in that location. I had no place to move it to and so I replaced it was a part shade plant.

My plant in the second photo gets part sun and the rest bright shade. It is a bit looser by this time of year, and is turning a bit more slowly than the two in full sun (first and third photos.)

Here it is from yesterday.

Heaven.

I have this plant too and absolutely HATE it. I think it only gets the good color in the very cold zones. Mine has never looked colorful. It just looks like a big weed. I'm ripping them all out next Spring.

Love, love, love it!! Interestingly, mine also has red/mahogany undertones this year too.

I have seeds of this plant if anyone wants to trade.

I've heard about the supposed outstanding fall color of Amsonia, but had no idea it was anything like this. Those photos are gorgeous!

Kevin

Ech - It may have something to do with other growing conditions. I have well-drained acid fine sandy loam with a lot of added well-composted manure added to the bed. It may not do as well in other soils. I haven't seen photos of your garden, so I also don't know how well this plant fits the style of your garden. It fits well in my rambunctiously casual garden which was planned to have as much year-round foliage interest as possible as well as looking nice from a longer view, so I would grow it regardless of its fall color.

I have to admit that it doesn't always look this spectacular. As long as we don't get an early hard freeze (when it goes from green to gray) it usually turns a lovely gold with orange highlights, more like the shaded plant in the fourth photo than this year's full sun plants. It does take a hard freeze (25 degrees F) to kill it however, so the color will develop through several light frosts in my garden.

My favourite plant! I'm in Canada and it is always beautiful here. I grow it in several spots on my rural property.

I am thinking about buying this plant, and I know it turns a pretty color in late fall or early winter, but how will I know when it's time to cut it back?

You cut it back whenever you don't like the way it looks any more. Even early spring would work.

Tina, I cut mine back any time between the first hard frost, when it turns a light tan color and earliest spring. I like how it looks still after the first hard frost but before the first snow, so I often cut it back in March after the snow melts, when it looks awful. They are pretty large plants, so I use a tool I learned about here for cutting back perennials, old-fashioned hedge shears.

Fall appearance after frost it adds contrast with the nearby evergreens

In early spring it isn't ornamental any longer so this is when I cut it off. When we have a winter like this one, with a thaw now that has eliminated what snow we have had, I can cut it back now.

Here in Zone 7 central NJ, near the shore, this perennial displays wonderful fall color year after year. Perhaps the lack of good autumn color may be due to other factors.

I put a couple in along one of the banks in my woodland, along with asters, eupatoriums, molinia, carex....and I honestly don't even care if the autumn colouration is vivid because I am loving the delicate structure and airiness of this plant. I have always had a huge weakness for large airy perennials but never had a space to show them to their advantage...but I have now. Have many of the tabernaemontana (from seed) dotted about the place too.

Thank you for your responses!

I am loving your garden, NHBabs. I am seeing a really distinctive American garden style on GW which is refreshing and exciting...for me at least...especially since trees, particularly evergreens, are underused in the UK...and I would say the same about a number of shrubs such as ninebark which create a totally different aesthetic to the 'heavy on perennials', English garden style which often passed for 'superior' garden taste in the US. I don't want to sound patronising...it really is interesting to fully appreciate a stylistic departure from current UK orthodoxy.

I think the tree-lines and 'borrowed' landscapes are a crucial aspect - the UK has not even begun to recover from the almost total loss of climax vegetation at the end of the 18-19C in lieu of agriculture and managed forestry which has nothing of the magical, natural or artistic.- our tree cover, at around 9% is the lowest in Europe with only a few tiny vestiges of ancient woodland.

Amsonia hubrichtii and a single gingko in October at the Morton Arboretum, Lisle, Illinois.

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