Purple Astilbes In Bloom - July 2023

Back in Spring of 2021, I planted some new (to me) bareroot purple Astilbes from Longfield Gardens after bringing them home from Costco - sort-of...on a whim.  Where I put them (on the northside, under the large flowering pear) ended up being too crowded.  Which lead me to attempting to dig some of them out and transplanting them last Fall.  I dug out three of them and tucked them in behind the red-bloomed Fanal Astilbes on the southside.  My thinking (then) was that if the Fanal Astilbes were happy here (and...from what I understand, Astilbes have a reputation for being finicky and hard to get established), the purple ones would like it over there, too.   I pretty much forgot about them as the foliage is pretty similar to the Fanal variety, so before they bloomed, they all.looked.the.same.

In the photo below, you can see the three Gloria Purpureas that are purple in color.   The Fanal blooms are spent, but the purple blooms are just getting started.  A nice sort-of sequential blooming situation that I lucked into. 

Astilbes should be a plant that I have in other places in the garden.  I added some purple foliage 'Dark Side of the Moon' Astilbes this Spring from the Morton sale.    The other one that I've been circling since 2021 is this Peach Blossom variety that I spotted at Hinsdale Nursery.  I recently saw it at the orange big box store where they were selling a 1.5 gallon container for $17.  This is one to watch (for me) for when the 50% off sale kicks in at the HD.