I will follow the results of your Astilbe with interest. I have tried several different types and they have never survived more than two years and never grew very much at all.

I've never grown these before and thought why not... So I picked up a couple bags in the local wally world to try them.
They are 'Sonny Boy' and 'White Diamond', I will try to remember to get close ups of the foliage today, but a new blog post will soon show the bed these are in from a distance. It looks so sad, currently. Cant wait until the other plants emerge...

Wow, looking through some of my old post today and ran across this.

Larry, Astible died out without even producing a single bloom. Guess they are not to be.

I used to try all types of new plants, and still do fall into that pit occasionally. I do much better with tried and proven plants for this area.