{"id":235,"date":"2010-12-13T06:40:38","date_gmt":"2010-12-13T14:40:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=235"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:32:57","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:32:57","slug":"amsonia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/amsonia\/","title":{"rendered":"Amsonia"},"content":{"rendered":"

AMSONIA<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Long ago, when I was studying perennial plants at the New York Botanical Garden, I was introduced to a statuesque plant that was holding court in one of the Garden’s perennial beds.\u00a0 It was nearly four feet tall, healthy and robust, as you might expect of a specimen living in such surroundings.\u00a0 Many elongated green leaves alternated up and down the tall stems, but at the time I thought they were nothing to write home about.\u00a0 The plant’s best feature was the profusion of pale blue, flat-topped flowerheads.\u00a0 Each flowerhead or corymb, as it is known botanically, was composed of a large number of five-petaled, star-shaped blossoms.\u00a0 The effect was lovely.\u00a0 Our instructor, an Englishwoman who never entered the classroom without a thermos of tea, told us the plant’s name: Amsonia tabernaemontana.\u00a0 We had to memorize it.\u00a0 Later I found out the common name, which is much more evocative: “blue star.”\u009d \u00a0\u00a0Though the flowers were impressive, I wasn’t so infatuated with the plant that I considered installing one in my home garden.\u00a0 I did, however, remember the Latin name for the test at the end of the course.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Later on, I met Amsonia tabernaemontana’s kissing cousin, Amsonia hubrichtii, sometimes known as Arkansas blue star.\u00a0 This amsonia, a little shorter at about 36 inches, had similar flowerheads and thin, thread-like leaves; but it had something else the tabernaemontana species did not have–autumn color.\u00a0 In the fall, the leaves turn a beautiful golden yellow shade.\u00a0 The plant is a clump-former, so in September, from even a short distance, a mature clump transforms itself into a magical golden haze.\u00a0 It is no surprise that Amsonia hubrichtii was named the Perennial Plant Association’s “Plant of the Year”\u009d for 2011.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Perennial Plant Association is a trade group devoted, not surprisingly, to the promotion of perennial plants. \u00a0Its annual “Plant of the Year”\u009d selections are not just worthy species, but mirrors of horticultural fashions.\u00a0 Amsonia hubrichtii is definitely a la mode.\u00a0 It is a North American native and hardy in USDA Zones 4 through 9, which makes it adaptable to most parts of the United States and Canada.\u00a0 Once established, it is drought tolerant and very easy to care for.\u00a0 Native plant lovers will appreciate its domestic provenance, prairie plant\/ornamental grass aficionados will love its affinity with those kinds of plants and landscapers will be gratified that it provides more than one season of interest.\u00a0 Organic gardeners will rave about the fact that it is easy to grow organically.\u00a0 The only way that Amsonia hubrichtii could be more in step with the times would be if you could eat it.\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Amsonia is a member of the Apocynaceae or dogbane family and its relations include vinca and asclepias, better known as milkweed.\u00a0 Dogbane family members are characterized by the milky sap that flows from cut stems.\u00a0 In the case of vinca and amsonia, blue or blue-purple flowers are also common. \u00a0The genus Amsonia was named for an eighteenth century Virginian, Dr. Charles Amson.\u00a0 The species name, “hubrichtii”\u009d is in honor of Leslie Hubricht, who discovered it in the Ozarks in 1942. \u00a0As I recall, Mr. Hubricht was a self-taught naturalist who made his name as a mollusk expert.\u00a0 Amsonia hubrichtii is a far cry from a mollusk, but some of the greatest discoveries have happened when scientists were looking for something else.\u00a0 I suspect that was the case with the Arkansas blue star.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There are a number of Amsonia species, cultivars and hybrids on the market, some of which share hubrichtii’s golden fall hues.\u00a0 If you have limited space or a container garden, you may want to try the hybrid Amsonia ‘Blue Ice,’ which grows only 12 to 15 inches tall.\u00a0 Its leaves are more like those of the tabernaemontana species than the hubrichtii, so the gold fall color may not appear as haze-like.\u00a0 There is also Amsonia ‘Short Stack,’ which reaches only about 10 inches tall.\u00a0 It does not have fall color, however.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Amsonia are frequently billed as “deer resistant,”\u009d though gardeners that I know with deer problems are always skeptical of that designation.\u00a0 Deer seem to have a deep and abiding awareness of plant fashions and are especially fond of anything that is either popular with humans or expensive for them to purchase.\u00a0 It seems reasonable that the milky sap harbored by amsonia and all dogbane family members may make the plants unpalatable in the same way that the milkweed sap absorbed by monarch butterfly larva make them unpalatable to predators.\u00a0 All you can do is try an amsonia in your garden and see what happens.\u00a0 Successful gardeners who live in areas with large deer populations are generally either good gamblers or great fence builders.\u00a0 They have my respect in either case.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For a good amsonia selection, try Plant Delights Nursery, 9241 Sauls Road, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27603, (919) 772-4794, www.plantdelights.com<\/a>.\u00a0 If you want a printed catalog, they request that you either send ten first class stamps or one box of chocolates.\u00a0 Their highly entertaining website states that they prefer the chocolate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AMSONIA \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Long ago, when I was studying perennial plants at the New York Botanical Garden, I was introduced to a statuesque plant that was holding court in one of the Garden’s perennial beds.\u00a0 It was nearly four feet tall, healthy and robust, as you might expect of a specimen living in such surroundings.\u00a0 Many … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-spring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1555,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions\/1555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}