PlantFiles: Smoke Tree
Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple'

I just love the foliage of this shrub, red purple on top with greenish underside that show in the breeze.
It suffers quite a bit of die back here in zone 5a but since I do not really admire the smoke that is produced on last year growth, it is fine with me.
I cut it back about one foot from the ground in early Spring. By the end of Summer it is full and at least 6 feet tall with large healthy leaves that really stand out. If you like purple foliage in your landscape, do consider this shrub.

Planted 2 Purple Leaf Smoke trees 3 yrs. ago and they are beautiful. They are close to 6ft. tall. But would prefer that they not grow any taller. They bloomed about 3 weeks ago, and is now the time to prune them? So hope you can answer my question. Thank you Lila pearliescot@yahoo.com

I have a purple smoke tree planted for about five years. Nice shape and color but it never maintains its bloom and I have no "smoke" look. It blooms every year but loses it all within a week and I am left with a spindly stick instead of bloom. I thought it was deer damage or early frost but have ruled that out.

I love this plant. I never really saw it in Illinois, but here in Ohio it is popular. By looking at its characteristics I am guessing relatively fast.

Years ago, my gosh, I believe it was probably 1995, I bought two dinky little wanna-be sticks about six inches tall from a company through the mail. Thank goodness for Dave's Garden Watchdog these days.

Anyhow. I planted the trees and basically ignored them for the last twelve years. They have done nothing more than survive, which makes me all the happier, because today is moving day for them.

If they can survive being stuck out in an unattended section of the circle drive through drought, ice storms, surprise spring frosts and worse, then just think what beauty is ours to behold once they are transplanted!

In digging, I was shocked to see what a minimal root system they had. Keep in mind they have not been cared for, so I'm certain a tree with proper upkeep would have a much larger rooting.

I'd have to say these little guys deserve a place in the landscape. One is now proudly standing in my daylily circle garden and the other one, well, as soon as I finish my tea break I'll dig him up for relocation as well.

:-) Karen Marie

What a most beautiful leaf colour!!!!
It needs to be pruned well, if left unattended it can grow in an ugly form. My neighbours didn't prune theirs, and it looks monstrous!

I am trying to propagate a few cuttings. I have put root start medium on them. I guess the only thing left to do is tent them (and create a greenhouse effect.)

I am trying to propagate a Smoke Tree from cuttings. I have placed the cuttings in various combinations such as plain water, fertilized water, soil. I have placed the cuttings under lights indoors. So far I have not had any good results in producing roots on the cuttings. The leaves are drying out and the cuttings are looking very poor.

A lovely tree. I like the color of the foliage and I wish it would keep its leaves year-round; they fall too soon for me.

The nice thing on the 'Smoke' is that it takes well to pruning. If left alone it is a very pretty 15 foot or so tree. For the space challenged... pruned back to about 12 inches every spring it makes a gorgeous shrub.

The only thing a can fine wrong w/ it is that it does lose its leaves very early here, even earlier than the Black Walnuts. But that can be a plus to anything planted beneath them.