Habitat: partial shade
Soil: moist, fertile soil
Height: 1 m
Flowering: late summer
Width: 60 cm
These are spectacular architectural plants, great for cool, shady, damp places. In spring they send up their stems from which leaves, often bronze at first, unfurl in a range of interesting shapes – pinnate or palmate in the case of rodgersias, a single large round leaf in Astilboides. The flowers are tiny, massed on tall plumes, rather like those of the related astilbes, white or pink. And then, for good measure, the leaves in most cases go a rich bronze colour again in autumn.
Rodgersia pinnata 'Elegans' has large of soft pink to creamy white flowers, and foliage that is bronze when emerging in spring an colours red in autumn.
| Astilboides tabularis is in a class of its own - the only species in this genus. It comes from moist woodland areas in East Asia. A moist woodland garden habitat or beside a shady stream or pond would suit it fine. It has large (to 90 cm) round leaves and in summer produces hundreds of tiny, creamy flowers in panicles that can reach 1.5 m. | |
| Rodgersia aesculifolia has, as the name suggests, large leaves similar in look and texture to those of the horse chestnut. In summer panicles of numerous, tiny, white or pink, starry flowers are produced. | |
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| Rodgersia pinnata 'Chocolate Wing' has foliage that changes from chocolate bronze through to dark green as it matures. It has pale pink flowers, turning red as they age. | |
| Rodgersia pinnata 'Maurice Mason' has wonderful dark green, bristly, textured leaves, and showy panicles of pink or white flowers. | |
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| Rodgersia pinnata SDR3301 gradually spreads by rhizomes to give an attractive clump, with crinkled leaves, the five to eight leaflets in a palmate or pinnate structure, on red stems. The many small flowers, in shades of pink, sometimes white, come in large, showy plumes. | |
| Rodgersia pinnata 'Superba' has superb plumes of flowers, bright pink, appearing from deep red buds. The foliage changes from rusty brown in the spring to mid green in the summer. This is a great autumn interest plant and wonderfully architectural. | |
| Rodgersia podophylla is a good woodland plant providing a range of leaf colours throughout the season - bronze in spring, dark green in summer and red in autumn. |