Cotinus coggygria 'Golden Spirit'

Niles, MI(Zone 5a)

Awesome color this year. As you can see, I've trained it into a tree form. Looking forward to the "smoke".

Thumbnail by dybbuk
somewhere, PA

oooo... I've had my eye on that one for a while. Be sure to post the picture when it
smokes. :-)

Brooklyn Park, MN(Zone 4a)

lucky mine died all the way to the ground-it had a nice shape-was a tree now a bush :(

Oak Park, IL

That's gorgeous; it makes a beautiful tree. I just planted one myself and I am thrilled with the color.

I am new to the smokebush, and perhaps you can help me with the 'Grace' hybrid cotinus that I also recently planted. It is leggy (one stem, about 2 feet high) and I am wondering if I should prune it back now or wait until early spring. Any opinion?

Minneapolis, MN(Zone 5a)

I removed my Golden Spirit due to it dying back to the ground each year.

I removed my 'Grace' due to the plant not wanting to go dormant in the fall and for its very leggy growth habit. I could never get 'Grace' to develop any fall color, either.

Leftwood, on Dave's, has a beautiful Cotinus obovatus growing in his front yard and the fall color is outstanding. This obovatus is the second or third he tried since the others never developed any fall color.

CW, do you want the plant to be a bush or tree form? If you want a tree form, let the one stem develop so the plant will have a trunk. You can prune the stem back a bit to force lateral branches when the trunk gets as tall as you would like. If you want a bush form, cut it back a bit now to force other branches to develop from the base of the plant.
My .02

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