This stunning landscape plant can get very large. I cut mine back to about 18" each year after flowering to keep it manageable.
The foliage is always a very bright light green, and the contrast with the cherry red flowers (which each can reach up to a foot tall) is very striking.

Reply to this comment

In my yard, this beautiful shrub blooms faithfully in shifting shade nearly year round. The red plumes appear on new growth each spring about May, a delicate pink at first, deepening to eye-catching crimson, and remain on the plant for a month or two after the flowers finish. The small tubular white blooms within the red calyxes appear for at least 2 months, while the plant puts on new growth in the fall. Come December, it begins a whole new round of bloom but progresses more slowly in winter. I'm going to need to prune it this fall, as it's taking over part of my potting bench now, but I'll prune selectively so as not to miss too much of the next round of bloom. I fertilize it lightly with a balanced timed-release formula in the late spring, and again at the end of September. I started this plant from a cutting 4 years ago, and it is a healthy 6ft. shrub now. It seems to be virtually pest and disease-free here.

Reply to this comment