Blue Star Amsonia
Another name for the Blue Star Amsonia shade plant is Dog Bane or Dogbane, they offer different decorative functions depending upon the season, and as such are highly attractive plants right through the warmer months of the year.
Bluestar Amsonia is native to southern lands, and displays many clusters of gorgeous pale blue star shaped flowers.
The flowers appear from spring to early summer, but the attraction of this shade plant does not fade with the flowers.
The beautiful lace like foliage of Amsonia will last until fall and consists of lovely green needle like or lance shaped leaves. These turn an exquisite golden yellow color in the fall. So you see the plant will remain ornamental all through the warm seasons.
Flowering lasts for just about two weeks in early summer; the plants reach a height of between one to three feet, and spread out up to three feet. Bloom time lasts to around 1 month.
This is a nice shade plant for a garden, even though it is slow growing, because it will not invade the rest of the garden, instead growing quietly in the area allotted to it.
Blue Star Amsonia offers three mini seasons of interest.
The blue flowers in Spring to early Summer, then beautiful lacy foliage till Fall when the foliage turns a gorgeous golden colour. This colour will last for a fairly long time.
Care of Bluestar Amsonia Plants
They are not hard to take care of and can tolerate almost any sort of soil and any type of shade through to sunlight. All you need to remember is that they need to be kept moist, especially in summer.
If you use dead heading on this plant, cutting away the dead flowers, it usually results in a second blossoming.
Deadheading extends the spring time flowering of the plant and even makes it bushier, so that the plants attractiveness is enhanced even beyond the flowering period.
Propagation
This Amsonia, or Dogbane, plant is best propagated in the dormant period, and this is accomplished by the simple procedure of division. It is also possible to collect seeds that you can sow, though the plant is quite capable of self-sowing if left to its own devices.
As you can see, this shade plant is easy to culture and maintain. There are a great many varieties that you can choose from, so do a little research into the attributes, needs, and availability of each variety before choosing the right one for your garden.
Soils
Like many shade plants, Blue Star Amsonia originated in moist woodland and growing on mossy banks. However, unlike many other plants of this type, it is very hardy.
It grows best when kept moist but will not die out immediately in intermediate dry periods. It prefers shade or partial shade, but can be grown even in full sunlight.
However an important thing to remember about soils is that you must not make the soil too rich – strangely enough, doing so will result in an inferior growth and it will not do as well. Average soil works best for this flowering shade plant.
Blue Star Amsonia prefers average soil; rich soil produces an inferior plant. Don’t let the soil go completely dry in the summer heat and enjoy this wonderful garden shade flower.
Landscaping
You can use Bluestar artistically to create colour contrast and back drops in an ornamental garden. It works exceedingly well when used to border path ways, or in the transition between the bright and shaded spots in your garden.
They can be used as a back drop for the colors of more exotically colored plants, especially the silvers and blues of Scabiosa and Artemisia.
Another nice idea is to plant Blue Star alongside perennials with dark leaves, such as Heuchera and Sedum, where the gold colors of the plant in fall will create a lovely contrast.
Amsonia Blue Star
There are many different varieties to choose from with different attributes, when looking for Blue Star Amsonia for sale read the label details to select the one that most suits your preferences or garden conditions.