Amsonia hubrichtii / Willow Blue Star
Amsonia’s billowy mounds just about stop traffic, even after the blooms have faded. It has that kind of impact, especially in a sizable mass. Then it looks lovely all summer til it knocks your socks off again in the fall (photo below taken at the Scott Arboretum in November).
It’s native to the rocky outcrops of Arkansas and Oklahoma.
Details
- Hardy to Zones 3-9.Sun or partial shade, but there’s better bloom and height with sun.
- Grows to 2-3 feet high and wide.
- Flowers May-June.
Care
- Established plants are reasonably drought-tolerant, though sources tell us that they generally prefer even moisture.
- After it blooms cut it back to 6 to 8 inches to make it bushier and prevent flopping, shaping the plant mass as you do it (making the outside and front shorter).
- Divide in spring or fall, though it shouldn’t need it for many years.
- It overwinters better if not cut back to the ground in fall, so wait til early spring.
by Tracy DiSabato-Aust is the best-selling book on how to make your perennials healthier and better-looking.
by Graham Rice is exhaustive and an outstanding general resource on the subject.
by Cutler and Ellis is another source I consult regularly.
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I love this plant. My old nursery Flowerplace Plant Farm was probably the first to sell it as a garden plant. I used to teach Horticulture at a community college in Meridian, Mississippi. I also wrote a gardening column for the local paper. One day in the fall, this eccentric looking older man showed up in my classroom with a bag in hand. He had read my column in the paper and decided to quiz me to see if I really knew anything. He pulled out 3 plant samples – on at a time. I cruised through the first 2. He pulled out the third – it was obviously herbaceous but with narrow willowy leaves and many slender rounded seed pods. I made a couple of feeble guesses. Then he blurts out – "It's Amsonia hubrictii and I'm Leslie Hubrict. It's named for me!" It seems thta during the40's, Mr. H worked at the Missouri Botanical Garden. He was an assistant to a botanist but his real love was collecting land snails. In his free time, he ventured far and wide following soil maps and looking for unique land snails. He found the amsonia while collecting land snails in Arkansas. He took it back to his boss who determined that it was a new species and named it for Leslie Hubrict. He gave me tons of seed and I grew it and started selling it in the nursery. Mr. H has passed now. His land snail collection is in the Chicago Museum of Natural Science I believe. He was also a great animal lover. He raised an orphan possum and released it. The possum would return through the pet door at night and eat cat food!
Sorry for this long indulgent post but I just had to write it. Aren't plant people the best???!!!