I have lots of moon flower seeds. I just harvested seeds from one plant that I have. 39 seeds pods and there is still that many or more on the vine. Each pod has about 100 seeds or more. Send me your address and I will put you some in the mail. Linda

I asked about this a little while ago and got some good advice. I eventually took it all down to 10 inches or so and it's coming back great, really bushy. Here is a link that might be useful: Pruning Cotinus

Chris, What do you mean "Loose tree form?" Leave it alone! It's still growing, they are fast growers that is all. It won't complete growing for awhile yet. Are the ends bright red? That means it is growing there. It will only bloom on OLD wood. Which means if you prune it before next summer, you won't see the blooms, the "smoke" which is really cool to see. If you still want it in a tree form, spring of 2009 cut it the way you want it and it will bloom on the foliage left at the top. By the way, personally, I don't think that these bushes look good as a tree form. They are grown for their foliage, therefore, you might be disappointed if you cut all the branches off trying to make a tree out of it.(I saw them at the nursery that I bought mine at last spring.) THey will get real big real fast. If you think it's too big, just cut it all the way down in the spring. They don't like having branches pruned half way. Just cut the whole thing down to about 1 foot and you will have a whole new smoke bush. It is beautiful, it looks like mine. Wait til fall, you won't believe the beautiful colors! Good Luck with it!

as noted.. the common name fails us.. as to IDing your plant .. do you know the latin of the one that interests you ??? my experience with such,. is that they are shrubs ... that can be trained into tree shape ... i dont know if that is dependent on which one you are talking about ... these things get extremely huge i hope you have it properly sited ... i planted one 6 feet from the house once... and within a very few years... i was running it over with the truck .. as it was growing 3 to 5 feet per year.. and scraping on the gutters .... [and it wasnt easy getting the truck in that bed so close to the house.. lol] if you are a novice as to pruning ... you might be better off.. buying one already made into a tree ... if you are interested in learning.. this is a great plant to learn on.. as.. once established after planting.. i doubt you could kill the thing ... but succeeding on making it look like a tree.. might be hard ... BTW ... it might take a few years for it to settle in.. and flower ... i seem to recall such .... ken