Amsonia hubrichtii 3 plants planted in a triangle about 18 inches apart. It grows into one large shrub-like beauty. Here it's with it's spring blue flowers right before it really starts to get it's full size, around 4 feet wide and about 3 feet high.
I frequent a good many gardening blogs every chance I get cause I always learn something new and they usually have photos of their plants that are always beautiful and sometimes real instructive. Such is “fairegarden” You can check it out right here and believe me it’s well worth your time: http://fairegarden.wordpress.com But what I wanted to bring to your attention in particular is this article on “How To Weed For Volunteer Seedlings” right here: http://fairegarden.wordpress.com/2011/08/10/how-to-weed-for-volunteer-seedlings/ Now I know about volunteers, I know about some volunteers with a vengeance, but the way Frances of fairegarden writes her articles it either reinforces what I already know or it propels me into doing something I forgot or like I said it might be something I didn’t even know. One thing for sure, her blog always has great photographs and great writing.
Now that’s what I spent doing this morning, weeding volunteer seedlings. How many Alabamian’s does it take to weed volunteer seedlings? Two in our garden. One digger, me and one potter, Linda…..:-) This morning we were digging up and potting Amsonia hubrichtii whose common name is Arkansas Blue Star, just about my favorite plant. Low maintenance, I haven’t even watered mine once in 6 years. Fertilizers need not apply cause they don’t need any. Does it need really good soil? Well I think about any plant need good drainage unless it’s a water plant…:-) but the soil I got mine planted in ain’t nothing special cause the lady I bought my plants from told me they didn’t need anything special and I took her word for it and she was right too. If it likes anything its full sun or a good bit of sun, the more the merrier.
Now the first year I grew Amsonia hubrichtii it died back to the ground from the 3 little plants I planted in a triangle about 18 inches apart that fall. Then come spring it came back but it grew up looking like mules tails. A feathery looking thing that just sprawled out on the ground horizontally!!!. I started to chuck it then but for some reason I felt like I needed to have a little more patience and thank goodness I did. Cause the next year it took off and made a beautiful shrub-like plant with thread leaf foliage covered with little light blue flowers in the spring and then stays green all summer long and then in the fall it turns a beautiful traffic stopping gold. There just ain’t no downside to this plant fellow gardeners, well OK maybe one. Let me show you what it looks like growing in my garden with it’s green thread leaf foliage, only one problem with it, if you want to call this a problem, that’s keeping from running your hands through the foliage all the time, it’s soft, soft as anything you can think of…OK enough words, here’s a photo.
Amsonia hubrichtii growing right inside my rose arbor. Thread leaf foliage stays nice and green all spring and summer and then turns a beautiful gold in the fall.
Now Linda potted up maybe 20 or so plants and we’re going to use 3 of them triangulated right behind my mail box when we build a new flower bed around and behind the mail box this fall. So that’ll leave us with a few extras, so if you’re in the neighborhood come by and I’ll give you one and you can grow one of you own but just try to keep your hands from running through it when you walk past it. Good luck with that fellow gardeners…..;-)
Paul From Alabama
Addendum:
Hope any of you that live around here and are interested in trying it will come by and I’ll be glad to give you an Amsonia hubrichtii till the last one is gone. Funny thing though about these volunteers, I’ve had this plant growing in the same place for 6 years now and this is the first year it’s volunteered for me. And then all the plants are growing right under edges of the plant or about a foot or so away. So it’s not an invasive type plant by any means, just a happy one that’ll make you happy too…..
Paul From Alabama
Paul From Alabama 
Hi Paul, thanks for the linkage! Amsonia hubrichtii is indeed a most wonderful plant. Yours has grown into such a lovely mass, it must be vivid in the fall, my favorite season for it. Try it with the pink muhly, Muhlenbergia capillaris for a match made in heaven!
I did a google search on pink muhly! Love!
Linda
Thanks I will give that a try, I see pink muhly grass all the time but never saws it with Amsonia, will go outside tomorrow like many other days and see if I “fit” it in…..:-) I been getting pretty good at “fitting” in stuff for years……:-) and thanks for your comment. I sure enjoy visiting your blog whenever you post something….please come back again soon.
“I replied to your comment but posted it under my wife’s comment. She’s always causing me trouble”……:-)…….Linda dearest, disregard this comment, I wasn’t about you, it was about my “other” wife, wait a minute, disregard that comment for sure……:-)
Hi Paul – your garden looks lovely with all of those wide angle shots. So many plants that I admire are grown in your garden. I’ve always wanted to grow Amsonia not so much for its little flowers but for the foliage and for its touchy feely effect – but I fear that our harsh Scottish winters and my awful wet heavy soil would be no match for it. I’ll have to make do with my artemesia arboreteum instead. I love your drifts of Pennisteum – yet another plant that is only an annual here in my garden.
Hey anybody that’d come all the way from Scotland to visit my garden is a friend of mine…..:-) As far as Artemesia arboretum, from looks of it that ain’t much of a sacrifice, she’s a lovely plant too….Will call you collect after this winter to let you know if my Pennisteum is hardy here in my 7b zone….I might just be on the safe side and take ’em on in late this fall……Thanks again for visiting and I hope you’ll return anytime……..