Q. Do astilbes do well in our area? I was thinking about planting some is a woodland garden setting.

A. Astilbes or false spirea is a flowering perennial with fern-like foliage and feathery plumed blossoms in red, pink, white coral and purple.

Most experts agree that astilbe originated in Japan and China. A Dutch botanist named Phillip Franz von Siebold collected specimens of astilbe and brought them to Europe. In Germany, George Arends began to breed Astilbes in the early 1900s. In 1933, Arends named and introduced the cultivar Fanal, which is still one of the most popular astilbe plants. This cultivar won the 1993 Royal Horticulture Society Award of Garden Merit and is still available to gardeners today.

Astilbes were introduced to North America in the late 1800s. It quickly gained

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