{"title":"Bluestars (Amsonia)","description":"\u003cp\u003eBluestars carry the name of John Amson, a Williamsburg physician of the mid eighteenth century, and one species carries the name of Leslie Hubricht, a self-taught naturalist who found the plant in Garland County, Arkansas in 1942 while chiefly hunting land snails. \u003cem\u003eAmsonia hubrichtii\u003c\/em\u003e went on to be named Perennial Plant of the Year in 2011 and now turns up in half the good public plantings in the country, which is a fair return on a snail expedition.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flowers are pale steel blue, borne in soft terminal clusters in mid spring, and pretty in an understated way. The foliage is the real reason to grow the plants. \u003cem\u003eAmsonia hubrichtii\u003c\/em\u003e carries needle-fine leaves that make a knee-high cloud all summer and then turn pure gold in autumn, holding that color for weeks; \u003cem\u003eAmsonia tabernaemontana\u003c\/em\u003e is broader-leaved and better in part shade. Long-lived, deer-proof, and entirely undemanding in ordinary soil and sun. Cut them back by a third after flowering if a clump wants tightening, and otherwise leave them alone.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"amsonia-hubrechtii","title":"Amsonia hubrichtii","description":"\u003cp\u003eThreadleaf bluestar is grown for two seasons at once: a haze of soft, powder-blue stars in late spring, and a billow of fine, needle-thin foliage that turns a blazing clear gold in fall. Native to the Ouachita Mountains of central Arkansas, \u003cem\u003eAmsonia hubrichtii\u003c\/em\u003e forms a large, dense, shrub-like clump of upright stems clothed in those threadlike leaves, and the autumn color alone earns a place in any sunny border.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe believe this now popular plant was first made available by Woodlanders, well before the Perennial Plant Association named the species Perennial Plant of the Year in 2011. The pale blue, half-inch flowers gather in terminal clusters atop three-foot stems, and the milky sap that runs in every Amsonia leaves the plant untouched by deer and rabbits. An easy, long-lived, almost trouble-free native for the sunny border with well-drained soil.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive threadleaf bluestar room to swell into a soft, fine-textured mound, lovely massed, repeated down a border, or set where the gold fall color can catch low autumn light. Striking beside late asters and grasses, and a generous foil to bolder leaves through summer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePhotos courtesy of Missouri Botanical Garden.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057809756275,"sku":"AMSO-HUBR-01G","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Amsonia_hubrichtii-MBG-4.jpg?v=1725832439"},{"product_id":"amsonia-tabernaemontana","title":"Amsonia tabernaemontana","description":"\u003cp\u003eEastern bluestar is the bluestar most gardeners know, a robust native perennial with broader, willowy oval leaves and the clear blue, star-shaped flowers that name the genus, carried in clusters at the stem tips in spring. \u003cem\u003eAmsonia tabernaemontana\u003c\/em\u003e grows happily in deep, moist soil in part shade, and rewards almost any reasonable site with bloom and easy good health.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAllan Armitage, in Herbaceous Perennial Plants, puts the species on his short list: \"Blue star flower is always on my list of 'no brainers.' Plant and get out of the way.\" The willowy summer foliage turns soft yellow in fall, the milky sap keeps deer and rabbits off, and a settled clump is as close to trouble-free as a perennial comes. Native across the eastern United States.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive eastern bluestar room to round into a shrubby clump at the middle of a border, in a native planting, or at a woodland edge, lovely with spring bulbs and early perennials and a quiet gold note in autumn. A light shear after bloom keeps the stems upright.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePhotos courtesy of James Reveal.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057809821811,"sku":"AMSO-TABE-01G","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/D670ED74-6253-4CAE-A700-27AD43C92F22.png?v=1726780192"},{"product_id":"amsonia-montana","title":"Amsonia montana","description":"\u003cp\u003eDwarf bluestar is the compact, well-behaved member of the clan, a tidy mound of upright stems and soft green leaves topped in late spring with clusters of powder-blue, star-shaped flowers. Often treated as a low form of the eastern bluestar, \u003cem\u003eAmsonia montana\u003c\/em\u003e stays small and shapely, a fine choice where the taller bluestars would sprawl.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eStanding only about a foot, dwarf bluestar suits the front of a border, a rock garden, a container, or any tight, sunny spot, where the spring flowers and the gold fall color both earn their keep on a small frame. Like the rest of the genus, the plant carries a milky sap that deer and rabbits refuse, and asks little once settled.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGrow dwarf bluestar in sun to part shade in most well-drained soils with moderate moisture, and shear lightly after bloom to keep the mound dense. Easy, long-lived, and tidier than the tall cousins.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057809920115,"sku":"AMSO-MONT-01G","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1228.jpg?v=1720136338"},{"product_id":"amsonia-ludoviciana","title":"Amsonia ludoviciana","description":"\u003cp\u003eMost bluestars are smooth, cool customers; \u003cem\u003eAmsonia ludoviciana\u003c\/em\u003e is the outlier of the group. The Louisiana bluestar belongs to the dogbane family, Apocynaceae, and shares the clan's five-petaled, star-shaped flowers and milky sap, but the leaves set the species apart: narrow and willowy, and unusually clothed beneath with a grey-white felt, a woolly tomentum that catches the light and lends the whole plant a soft, silvered cast rare in the genus. In spring, clustered flowers of a clean sky-blue open at the tips of the upright stems, quiet and steely and worked over by the first butterflies of the season.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere is a real story behind these plants. Woodlanders obtained the Louisiana bluestar years ago from Brookgreen Gardens on the South Carolina coast, where the perennial had grown in cultivation since the celebrated botanist Dr. J. K. Small introduced the plant there in perhaps the 1920s. For a long stretch the species was feared lost, thought extinct in the wild, before being rediscovered in Louisiana; today botanists record scattered, uncommon populations from South Carolina west through Louisiana and Mississippi. Growing a nursery-raised plant of this rank keeps a rare Southeastern native in gardens and in circulation, a quiet piece of conservation.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe names carry their own small histories. The genus \u003cem\u003eAmsonia\u003c\/em\u003e honors Charles Amson, an eighteenth-century physician of colonial Virginia, while the epithet \u003cem\u003eludoviciana\u003c\/em\u003e means simply of Louisiana, the state that sheltered the rediscovered plants. Like the milkweeds to which the bluestars are related, the stems run with a milky latex that browsing deer and rabbits leave strictly alone, so the plant reads as both delicate and durable: pollinators come for the spring nectar, and almost nothing comes to graze.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden the Louisiana bluestar earns a place three seasons running. Site the plant in full sun to light shade and give lean, well-drained ground; despite wet-flatwoods origins the deep-rooted perennial shrugs off drought once settled, and only floppy, over-lush growth comes of rich soil. The spring flowers read against the silvered foliage, the fine-textured mound holds all summer, and in autumn the leaves turn a warm butter-gold that lights the border before the stems die back for winter. Set a plant among little bluestem, coneflower, and baptisia for a sunny native planting, or let a drift carry the cool blue through the edge of a meadow.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057809985651,"sku":"AMSO-LUDO-01G","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1077.jpg?v=1720136343"}],"url":"https:\/\/woodlanders.net\/collections\/amsonia.oembed","provider":"Woodlanders","version":"1.0","type":"link"}