I’ve been trying to get my head round Eupatoriums, which I see (and ignore) have become Eutrochium.
Well, some of them have. Some have become something else. Some might be Ageratina. Ask Ben. There are at least three which I love and want more more more of. And one that I feel very ambivalent about, which I get, willy nilly, more more more of. On the other hand, please note, I am not totally confident what some of mine are. But the one I have too much of is, I believe, otherwise known in the UK as Hemp agrimony.
Very wishy washy in flower (bud pinker so looks promising then hmm). Bees love it.
It’s a Very Good plant because it is a British native, much loved by all those invertebrates we love so dearly (do we love stingy wasps??) and it’s true that I see much buzzing around on them. It’s a bit washed out in colour and rather large, though if I remember to cut it down earlier in the year it’s not too bad. But I’ve had enough of its seeding and in an effort to stop that I have asked Angus to cut off all the flowers. Angus ought perhaps to be called the Incredible Help, since he bombs through work in the garden on his one day a week doing the work of multitudes. Like planting five hundred and fifteen bulbs today, then cutting down and removing enormous numbers of eupatoriums. (You can see Angus on this post)
ready to rot
But I love my perhaps very best Eupatorium find – Eupatorium cannabinum ‘Flore Pleno’.
I originally bought it, sight unseen, because the great British plantsman, Bob Brown, wrote: “(Double hemp agrimony.) Solid powder pink flower heads Jul-Sep, 1m. Easy. Lovely planted near roses. All the stamens that make the single flower grey have changed to pink.”
Eupatorium cannabinum ‘Flore Pleno’
I planted one with my roses, Rosa Felicia, in a bed which actually gets taken over in late summer by Japanese anemones (now Eriocapitella hupehensis apparently. Good luck with that) and I just love the result. See here. The eupatorium is a beautiful deep rosy pink, and high enough to appear above the anemones and enhance their paler pink.
I know, it’s changed colour. The light does it!!
I ordered half a dozen more, as you do. One of which turned out to be suspiciously paler. Which I took up with the supplier of that particular one, who replied “No, ours is Eupatorium cannabinum. They are however so similar that I decided it wasn’t worth selling Flore Pleno.” Well, he’s wrong, that one had to come out and I was not pleased. Perennials take a long time to show what they are, and if they’re wrong, they are taking the time and space of the right one.
However, I just about have them backing up the anemones right through the border now. Almost. And they and the rest of that bed give me great pleasure at this time of year.
Then there’s the wonderful deep purple one, which could be Eupatorium maculatum ‘Riesenschirm’
or maybe Eupatorium maculatum (Atropurpureum Group). Or something else entirely, of course.
It’s actually more purple than this appears, such is still the nature of photography.
If you want to know the possible difference try here. These are the ones I wish would seed. Graham Stuart Thomas says ‘It will outshine most flowers in September and October, and is a superb companion for the Hybrid Musk rose ‘Vanity’ and Hydrangea paniculata ‘Grandiflora'”, which is a possibility I have not availed myself of, but you might.
Christopher Lloyd says that this one is “North American, best known to them as Joe Pye-Weed, which, as a well-known native, they naturally despise.” How things have changed, eh? Piet Oudolf appreciates their “architectural quality, emphasised by their foliage and umbel like heads of softly coloured flowers.”
Potentially six feet high, but before you rush out with sticks and string, I note that Noel Kingsbury, the great ‘what happens underground’ man, says that “splitting one of these involves hacking your way through a massive radial root system – which takes a few years to build up, and is clearly a solution to how to stop 3m high plants from falling over. It is quite unlike anything you will find in any other perennial.”
There is a smaller version of this, apparently, called ‘Purple Bush,’ though one of our prominent nurseries sells it and suggest it grows to seven and a quarter feet, which is not exactly miniscule. Maybe Crocus are wrong? ! ?
So perhaps it’s not strange that I usually feel rather confused about eupatoriums.
Piet Oudolf lists several I’ve never heard of. There is a Eupatorium rugosum ‘Chocolate’ but I know it not. I do, however, possess an apparent rarity – Eupatorium rugosum ‘Braunlaub’. I fell in love with this – the flowers are pure white.
Whiter than this. (the photo’s fault again..)
In spite of my unusually careful care and watchful eye, it didn’t thrive, so I moved it and it’s alive and flowering as I write.
See – whiter pic.
But it’s no longer available for sale anywhere that I can see, and it’s miffiness may be why. I hope I can manage to keep it. And that that wonderful deep purple one learns how to seed around.
Don’t be put off growing the cultivated ones by my confusions about them. Not unless you mustn’t for some American reason. They like damp, so Marianne may forgo.
Easy plants, I’d say, and lovely.
No idea which one. (are they breeding at Veddw??!!)
You can see some of my confusion here – these are at different stages – are they all the same one? And you can just spot one the left how they can look manky when they’re going over.
A botanist could help us out. They’ll be hard to buy in flower, being so big. But I wouldn’t be without any of them.
So interesting — thank you, Anne. I guess anything with “weed” right in the common name is likely to attract haters, but I’ve enjoyed my common one for its seed heads late into the year — for about a week when the sun catches them just so. I’m not a great fan of boring pink — so I’ll be on the lookout for that purple one too. The dark stems are gorgeous.
Ah, but now we are supposed to love our weeds, so haters beware!
I too love Eutrochiums. Not many are hardy in my neck of the woods (Zones3/4) but I have one of the original species. I purchased it just for it’s cool name: as Eupatorium purpureum atropurpureum. I love how it rolls off the tongue. Hence, I still refer to it as a Eup. I have split mine several times, kept some and given more away. They are in full sun to creekside in water and all are thriving. Gotta love something so versatile and beautiful. Chocolate is a much sought after cultivar here but not reliably hardy. It is a beautiful plant though.
I was put off Chocolate as I read that it’s grown for the purple leaves rather than the flower.
Eupatorium purpureum atropurpureum is a great name – you apparently can add maculatum before the purps. Much better than ‘Purple Bush’, which you might find it called in the UK.
Christopher Lloyd was right. Americans once despised its native Joe-Pye Weed (Eupatorium maculatum). I suspect less self-loathing than weed association. In the 80s, I imported a cultivar from the Blooms at Bressingham (I forget which one) and sold it as a novel English cultivar. This carried cachet. Good ol’ Joe-Pye Weed was suddenly acceptable. If it’s from England it must be good. Right? Eupatrorium ‘Riesenschrim’ looks enticing. Oooh, that’s a German cultivar. No problem.
That Eupatorium does get called Eupatorium maculatum (Atropurpureum Group) ‘Riesenschirm’ !
Is anyone else running around pulling out the white flowering Eupatorium perlatifolia, aka Boneset?
That might be my precious and well loved white one – https://www.knightsgardencentres.com/plantguide/plant/perennial/eupatorium-perfoliatum ? They look a bit alike!
Wasps rarely if ever sting unless you bother them. They don’t like it when you eat their jam on the scone on your plate, or if you disturb their home that they’ve made in the compost bin. Left to their own devices they make good companions.
They get bad tempered in September though. Bit like you, I suppose.
I burst out laughing when I read your reply!
I was laughing when I wrote it too!
In a “gardening with native plants” class (North American natives) we were taught that the former Genus Eupatorium was subdivided and now the pink or purple flowering “Joe Pye Weeds” were assigned to the Genus Eutrochium. This group of plants have mostly whorled leaves. We were also told that the “true” Eupatoriums or “Bonesets” are always white flowered and have opposite leaves.
Here in western PA a common “white boneset” was once called Eupatorium rugosum, but has been reclassified as Ageratum altissima, which is actually the toxic white snakeroot. It spreads like crazy in my area (probably because the deer avoid it and have devoured most of our other native flora). It’s very pretty in front of evergreens at the edge of a woodland and will even grow in dry shade.
Another western PA native, the blue flowering Eupatorium coelestinum is now known as Conoclinium colestinum, aka blue mist flower or wild ageratum. It’s also an aggressive spreader and deer resistant in my wild garden.
My grandmother referred to all of these plants as Eupatoriums, no matter what their color or leaf arrangements. She admired them for their late season color and hardiness and I do as well.
You have added very usefully to my confusion now. And even more usefully for readers in America, who must be quite oppressed by some of these.
Like you – I’m with your grandmother, I think!
Gosh I love your English descriptors – miffiness & manky caught my eye! I hope I will add them to my vocabulary soon!
I hope I’m not too obscure for American readers!
Maybe 3 years ago, blue mist flower (also called Hardy Ageratum or Conoclinium) showed up in my front garden. I always let stray plants grow to see what they are. I was delighted with that lovely, periwinkle blue fuzzy flower. The next year, it was a 2 ft. x 2ft. mat. This year, even wider and it is dotted here and there. It is definitely vigorous, to say the least, but I love the color it brings to the late summer/fall garden, and it looks very nice intermingling with goldenrod and Japanese Anemone. To my delight, this year some of the plants have beautiful, clear lemon yellow leaves. Just smashing with the periwinkle blue flowers. I think next spring I will move some of it to the weedy “problem area” along the neighbor’s fence, a 2 ft. wide area that is slightly hummocky.
A neighbor gave me hardy ageratum. Yup it spreads, but easily yanked. I like it. Joe Pie weed and it’s relatives, not so much, it can stay along abandoned railroad tracks and farm fields for me to view at a distance.
Wow, a blue one! I’ve never seen that, it looks amazing. May have to have that!! Thanks for the tip.
Plot twist. There’s a 3ft tall Japanese variety that is still called an Eupatorium. It’s variegated. Green with creamy yellow-white edges. Eupatorium fortunei “pink frost”. (I’m really hoping that the height is accurate.)
So there is! Yes, 3-4 feet, I think. The name will continue…… (until the next name change))
I have the Chocolate and love it. It is very hardy for me in zone 6ish into 7. I originally got it from a member of the Annapolis Horticulture Soc (Maryland) and have moved it to Central Va now. We had a terribly dry summer and it looked most forlorn in August. But it bloomed well. I have it in combination with the rose ‘The Fairy’ which is pink and the dark leaves are a great background for it all summer.
Joe Pye the native at 7-9′ in wet conditions is difficult in the garden bed, but the Little Joe at 3-4′ in the USA is manageable.
Tish Iorio
Seven to nine feet high??!!!! Wow, yes – I’ve not known any of mine reach that kind of size. Impressive.
I planted a dwarf Joe Pye weed between my backyard fence and sidewalk many years ago. Dwarf! Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha! Left to its own devices, it gets 7 to 9 feet tall. Now I pull up every sprout of it I see each day until about the middle of July. That gets it to a more manageable 5 feet tall. It loves Kentucky weather. You see it everywhere.
Seven to nine feet is ridiculous. Quite right to show it a bit of discipline.