I sent you both emails. Also, i neglected to mention i have about 5 VERY old clumps. they are very large and hold a lot of mass... sort of like the mass of a large colocasia tuber, just instead swollen tuberous roots. heres an example of what i mean by VERY mature and large:

In the Chicago area I also get dieback - usually not a big issue, but if you need a symetrical bush this one could be a problem. It also leafs-out very very late in the spring - mine were originally in a prominent spot & looked like a bunch of dead bushes, so I moved them where the bare branches weren't so obvious. They do transplant very easy, but send out many runners which can go alittle deep, so be careful what you plant it next to. Only buy 1 bush & you'll soon have more. I paid good money for 5 pots at a nursery, & the following year saw them at a big box store for a fraction of the price. I've got both Henry's Garnet & Little Henry, but with all the relocating these have endured, I can't tell now which is which - they look the same. Maybe in a few more years when they get close to mature sizes it may be more obvious. Mine are good bloomers, but the flowers turn 'dirty' white quickly, and looks best from close-up. I probally wouldn't grow these for their flowers. The fall color is great, looks great from a distance & lasts a long time.

I have 9 'Little Henry' shrubs mixed in my garden. I don't have any photos of it in bloom because we had a frost in mid-April last year that killed the buds. If the ground is moist, there are some interesting perennials to use such as amsonia hubrechtii and the sedge, carex testacea. The three provide a nice fall foliage color combo with the itea turning red, the amsonia yellow and the sedge orange. However, that's not a flowering group if you want blooms. The amsonia has tiny little blue flowers in spring. If you want more blooms in moist soil, daylilies (deer will eat), canna, Japanese or Siberian iris, or bee balm will work. Little Henry blooms in late spring here (zone 7), so I consider it a nice green backdrop during the summer. Which gives a lot of possibilities with perennials. What colors do you like? Since Little Henry has small oval leaves, I would look for a frilly and a spikey plant to use to compliment. I can only speak to zone 7 plants, so check to see if these work in your zone: If you like blue/purple, nepeta 'Walker's Low' blooms from spring until frost. The flowers are on soft spikes. Bees love it. It can be divided easily in the spring for more plants. It's a nice tall edging plant, too. I cut it back in fall or early spring and then cut it again after the first bloom to get more blooms. I use Black & Decker cordless HedgeHog trimmer to make it easy. In this photo, nepeta 'Six Hills Giant' (taller than Walkers Low) is behind Spanish Lavender. In this photo, I have purple sage (foliage) and aster frikartii 'Monch'. Again, these are for dry soil. They also work well with the lavender, nepeta and Little Henry. I hope this helps. Cameron Here is a link that might be useful: my gardening blog

Welcome to the wacky world of ecodivergence! One group of people working from field surveys, find a species of plant near extinction within their state, declare it to be endangered, threatned or of special concern. On the other hand, another group of people, receiving reports from other areas within the region, declare that same species of plant to be invasive within the entire region. In looking over the N'EAST list of invasives, I was surprised to find a number of common native trees and vines there, such as Red Maple, Box Elder, Black Locust, two species of Cherry, White & Green Ash, Cottonwood, Trumpet Creeper, VA Creeper, Virgin's Bower(Clematis) and many, if not most of the native grapes. It's not unlikely, that in some locations with ideal growing conditions, fire & flood suppression, that some or all of these these plants will rapidly multiply to a level that endanger the survivability of other native plants, but I would suppose that they are also hosts and food sources for a wide range of wildlife, that would also thrive there. The Acalypha virginica shown in the photo on the plants.usda website, appears to be a host for some species of catepillar. With strong opinions on both sides of the ecological issue, you will always find conflicting views and statements. I guess we must choose sides, or ignore both. Rb