Susie,
Maybe you didn't get the colored one. Mine came with very dark color from the beginning. It is most beautiful in the fall. I forgot the name. It had somthing to do with purple. I think it's 'Royal Purple'.This photo was just taken a few minutes ago:
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I think this is one of those plants that you should buy when in leaf, so you can get a good color. Did you google it, and learn what color it should be, and the best growing conditions?

Grace is sure supposed to be purple. The purple varieties will green out in shade, although I had a "royal cloak" in shade and it stayed purple for a long time into the season

There is a gold variety that I found online but the intervening 3 minutes before logging on again, I forgot the name.

idabean

Well that's infuriating.
I bought this with a couple of leaves on it. I don't think it's the only plant I bought that wasn't as advertised. I got what was meant to be Aster laterifolius 'Lady in Black' and she never strays far from green.
I will try and track down the right plant but it annoys me a bit that I have invested a good year in this one, watching hopefully for the purple! :-)
Thanks for the info.
Does anyone have a pic of Grace in summer?
Regards
Susie

p.s. I just love your Royal Purple pitimpinai, thanks for the beautiful picture.
I think you have inspired me to start a new post for purple/red leaf plants. I just love them.
Susie

The yellow foliaged-cultivar is 'Golden Spirit.' It is wonderful & my favorite shrub.

I sell numerous kinds of smokebushes at my nursery, plus we have several that are planted in display beds. 'Grace' does not have the same color intensity to its foliage as do the other named purple leaf forms - 'Royal Purple' and 'Velvet Cloak'. Its foliage is best described as bronze-green or even a grey-pink on the newest growth. Its outstanding characteristics are its robust growth (it gets BIG and quickly), very large leaf size and stunning fall color.

But if you are expecting a deep burgundy red color that holds well throughout the summer, 'Grace' is not going to produce anywhere the same effect as will the other two I mentioned.

Thanks for your post GardenGal - that was very informative. I was at Bluestone Perennials today and the entire flat of Grace was green as can be. Somebody got something mixed up when they started advertising that it is purple.

Gardengal - do you know which one people use when they cut them back hard in spring to induce the new purple growth? I saw it used extensively in perennial borders at the Chicago Botanical Garden and it was gorgeous. They cut it back so it was about 18-24" high with the new leaves.

I prune my 'Royal Purple' pretty hard...doing so deletes the chance for blooms, but I planted it for the foliage anyway.

It is almost black it is so intensely purple...with just a hint of burgundy flashing through...quite striking, indeed.

The cultivar you saw was probably "Royal Purple." The CBG has more of those than any other cultivar, & that was the 1 I saw when I was there last week.

'Royal Purple' is much more common in the trade than 'Velvet Cloak' so that's a good bet. It could also just be a generic atropurpureum, but those tend to have rather variable coloring and do not hold their color in summer nearly as well as the named forms.

My own smokebush is 'Velvet Cloak' and it gets hard pruned each spring back to about 30". The color is a deep rich burgundy with NO fading. And the leaves get very large with this process. At the end of the season it will have put on considerable growth and be 6-7' tall. It is planted right in front of a chartreuse leaved Robinia 'Frisia' and the combination is really quite stunning :-) The 'Royal Purple' at the nursery gets coppiced annually as well and it is also a great strong color with no fading.

Disclaimer: PNW summer sun is nowhere near as strong as it can be elsewhere in the country. YMMV

I believe that Cotinus 'Grace' is a hybrid between coggygria and C. obovata, a tree. ( I hope I have the species name correct. I'm not at home and can't check.)