Of all the autumn colouring plants I have grown this would have to be one of my favourites, albeit quite a prima donna. It requires a cool aspect and a moist acidic soil to do well which probably means you need to live at Mt. Macedon or a similar climate to even grow it. But you already had lots of reasons to move to a hill station climate and this will just give you one more reason! And it will be worth it.
It will grow eventually to a large multi-stemmed shrub to 4 metres or so and in winter whilst it is bare it produces tiny burgundy flowers like little star fish that sit in pairs back to back which is unique as far as I know. It is however for the foliage that you would grow this plant. The leaves are heart shaped and mid green in summer and come autumn they will turn to yellow in the centre of the shrub and as you get further out they will be orange then red then deepest burgundy.
It cames from Japan and South Eastern China and is fairly hard to propagate so isn’t often available. I have young plants in 15cm. pots at the moment for $29.50 so if you won’t to have a go you had best get moving!
