I have had Palace Garden Beauty for 9 years and will probably always have it because I love the color of it. As an evergreen it does fairly well in my zone. It is taller here than its 25" registered stat. It does not increase very fast. I haven't yet in 9 years divided it. I love the fact that it is fertile both ways. Haven't checked bud count this year but I will check later and update this post.
UPDATE: I checked bud count and it was rather dismal this summer. I had one scape with 2-way branching and only 6 buds. I fertilized this plant in the spring and we had tons of rain. Can't say why this plant did poorly this summer. I did set a lot of pods on this plant last summer, so maybe that was a factor.
