Very pretty Cathy. How long does it usually bloom for you? Also do the butterflies and bees like it?

I think they are all great but I adore A. hubrichtii for the foliage. It blooms in June here and the flowers are not very long lasting. The gorgeous airy green of summer gives way to gold & orange.

Cathy I think yours might be A. tabernaemontana.

I grew it in my old beachside garden that had full sun. Very short bloom season for me (A. hubrichtii) but I also grew it primarily for the foliage effect and texture.

Died.

I have both Amsonia hubrichtii and A. tabernaemontana or perhaps 'Blue Ice'. As others have said, the bloom period is relatively short, perhaps 10 days to two weeks, with light steel blue flowers. After that in my garden the 'Blue Ice' becomes just background leaves until fall when it turns gold. The A. hubrichtii feathery foliage is beautiful all season long as peren.all's photos illustrate, providing a wonderful textural contrast to other plants, and I even like the contrast the dead stems and foliage provide after frost but before the snow. If you click on my name, the cover photo on my Houzz page shows two large tan masses at the front of the bed which are A. hubrichtii in November. Mine are good-sized plants, about 3' in all directions for much of the season, though they tend to spread a bit late in the season. I sometimes get a seedling or two. I have three A. hubrichtii but only one 'Blue Ice' and that kind of tells you which I like better. I also can't find a single photo of 'Blue Ice' because I am just not that impressed with it.

A. hubrichtii spring bloom just starting to fade, mid-June

The garden writer for the Washington Post said that hubrichtii doesn't develop much of a golden fall tone in the mid Atlantic so I've resisted. I wonder if others in my area are getting golden foliage?

Cecily, it could be that it doesn't turn color everywhere, but I wonder how much actual experience the writer has with the plant. Mine didn't turn color at all for the first two or perhaps three seasons, to the point I really wondered what all the hoopla was about. Hopefully someone else in your area will weigh in. I'd pretty much decided that it wasn't ever going to change color here with my relatively short season when the following fall it turned the color shown above. I had also decided that I was going to keep it despite the lack of fall color because the foliage was so nice and such a beautiful foil for the nearby shrubs. I also have it growing near other large perennials like Baptisia, Sum and Substance Hosta (until the voles ate both; the Baptisia recovered while the Hosta disappeared). In my garden, the voles haven't eaten either of my Amsonia at all, so I would consider them quite safe around voles.

Thanks for the quick response Babs, I was thinking I could use hubrichtii and baptisia in a new "dry" bed backing a row of bearded iris. Maybe add Powis Castle artemisia and Sheffield chrysanthemum also. I'll give it a try.

I've got four types, including A. ciliata var. filifolia. There are a couple of young ones in this photo from mid-May of last year. The location gets sun until early afternoon and then high shade from the giant pin oak next door.

There's an evaluation of various Amsonia spp. at the Chicago Botanic Garden site, available here as a PDF file. It says that A. ciliata var. filifolia has trouble with chlorosis, and I think mine have the same trouble later in the season. Last year they weren't as bad, which could be that they are less susceptible as they are getting more established, or it could be that the Osmocote I scattered around them in the spring helped. They apparently like sandy soils, so my silty clay loam isn't ideal.

Grrr, I am irked and fed up all over again. Transplanted healthy seedlings of both tabernaemontana and hubrichtii...which promptly vanished into some volish hell hole (all that was left was signs of digging and tunnels).

My Amsoma ciliata var texana is very different than what they say in that trial mentioned above. It blooms in Late march /early april (right now), Not June/July and it is NEVER ever 28". True, I am growing it on a BRUTAL unirrigated limestone marl/caliche skree and not a stitch of shade any time, anywhere. The other one I am growing A. longiflora , they do not even mention in that trial . It grows between Central Texas and Arizona. It is growing well on a very rocky slope. I watered in when planting theback in October . It has had 5" of rain since then . I saw it breaking ground looking good and vibrant. We are really dry so I gave it some water today. Nevermore sent me 4 types of desert amsonia seed. I have them in the frig cold stratifying . I forgot to plant them this winter. Too Munch going on. They are from Utah and New Mexico so Texas style natural cold Stratification is probably not enough anyway. Desert and Texas amsonias are slow growers. Slower than Molasses.

I too grow Amsonia hubrichtii.....very very slowwwly. I think it’s my slowest grower ever!

Hoping this year to see the beautiful fall color....

In addition to the four that Wantonamara noted... I have two other types seeded right now. I took half of each type, planted them into a seed tray and left them outside for two or so months through winter and then moved them under lights inside. The second half were cold damp stratified for the same period in the fridge before going into a seed tray under the same lights.

In the end I got half to germinate from each tray….. The rest were rotten. So I ended up consolidating them into a single tray. Not that will try again … but if I did… I would cut the stratification period down to just for weeks or so. Maybe this would help on the rotting issue.

Right now the seedlings are a few inches tall. The media is half seed mix and half vermiculite. Some seem to be struggle a bit. Even though I just started barely giving the weakest of fertilizer in the watering.. I am getting some yellowing of the leaves. Don’t know what’s going on. I have no idea what I will be doing with them all… I don’t have room for a fraction of them. I have issues.

My favorite is Amsonia tabernaemontana. It keeps a nice dark green foliage throughout the season, is drought tolerant, has darker blue flowers than other varieties and is a quite substantial plant (almost like a small shrub). It has been hard for me to find it in local,nurseries and even by mailorder. Halfway to Arkansas is also a substantial plant in my garden but with a paler shade of blue flower. I also love hubrichtii for it’s fall color but in my garden it seeds itself everywhere so is a bit of a nuisance. And yes it’s is a slow grower and late to wake up in the spring. As I mentioned in a previous post. I have blue ice and find it spreads too much too my liking, invading other plants.

Campanula, my heart goes out to you. I just lost a gorgeous Baptisia Purple Smoke to what I still think were voles so grrr from me too!

Woodstea, thank you for the link for the Amsonia study. It is a really good plant overall...

It's disappointing that the blooms don't last longer, but they are beautiful plants. Perhaps in the future breeders will develop varieties that bloom longer.

Today I went into the frig and checked my coffee filters of cold stratifying amsonias and found 2 large. germinating A. eastwoodiana from Emory county Utah, and 2 Amsonia tomentosa seeds from Garfield county Utah. These seeds are huge , maybe 3/4" long. They had just germinated showing a tip of root sticking out in a white tip, so I took them out and put them in a 4" pot of quickly draining soil. Thank you Nevermore. These have been in the frig for 2 weeks. I will be checking twice a week and taking them out as soon as I see them breaking dormancy. The Amsonia jonesii and Amsonia arenaria are still unchanged in their baggies.

I have hubrichtii. The flowers are Ho hum but the foliage is unbeatable. Astounding yellow in fall. Mine just sat there looking unimpressive until year 3 when they really grew and looked magnificent. I grow it in part shade and it seems tough as nails for me.

Wat. Yes some took weeks more to germinate after I brought them under lights. The jonesii took the longest but actually gave me the beat rate of germination. I have twice as many of them compared to the rest. Am I to assume the ph is alkaline where these are from? I’m wondering if a tiny bit of wood ash sprinkled in the seed trays would be good or not.

Hubrichtii is the best Year round interest. My boy always says it feels like a kitty cat

Yes the soils where they come from are alkaline but not as alkaline as where I am . The soils are sand stone based in Utah and NM. They are more neutral than further south and east of there. I am not sure about the A. jonesii. I checked the ones that I planted outside and there has definitely been growth in the root. YEAH!! I bet the Jonesii is also from Utah but I know it grows in Arizona so I bet it might need more heat to bust loose. , I just hope these guys don't mind my humid hot nights. I am in this area that gets humidity without the rain. Go figure.

I can not grow A hubrichti here. To dry or too hot. I have NEVER EVER seen it in the stores.