Cotinus coggygria Smokey Joe - Smoke Bush

Cotinus coggygria 'Smokey Joe' is an English selection of the bush with a compact habit and small size that performs particularly well in containers. Its other assets are quick flowering on young plants, abundant feathery flowering in a bright pink colour in summer, and autumn foliage of fire and flames. Truly happy in most climates, even the toughest ones, it will be more colourful in the sun and more floriferous in poor, chalky, and dry soil.

Cotinus coggygria, also known as smoke bush, is a deciduous shrub of the family Anacardiaceae, native to southern Europe and Asia. In nature, it grows on rocky slopes, on poor soils and in dry climates. The variety 'Smokey Joe', recently developed in England, is distinguished by its compact and well-branched habit and its very pink inflorescences. It reaches a maximum height of 2.50 m (8 ft 2 in) with a spread of 2 m (6 ft 7 in), on average 2 m (6 ft 7 in) tall by 1.50 m (4 ft 11 in) wide at maturity. In June, it forms panicles of small yellow-green flowers, whose pedicels lengthen to form a long panicle covered with hairs: the inflorescence then takes on a bright pink, feathery appearance, which has earned this species its name of smoke bush. During the summer, the 'smoke' turns to light bronze. Its oval-shaped, 7 cm (2.8 in) long leaves appear in April, earlier or later depending on the climate. From spring to summer, they are a vibrant green, then they take on beautiful shades of purple-violet to orange-red before falling quite late, at the end of October.

Truly easy to grow and very undemanding, the 'Smokey Joe' Cotinus finds its place in all gardens, even the smallest ones, or in a large pot on the terrace or balcony. In this case it will be necessary to choose a large, heavy, and stable container that the wind will not risk knocking over. Once well established in the garden, it tolerates drought well but does not tolerate excessive humidity in winter, especially in heavy soils. Like deciduous euonymus, it is very useful for brightening up hedges or low-growing evergreen shrub borders such as boxwoods, escallonias, and compact laurel-tins. Its fabulous autumn colours go well with late-flowering shrubs in shades of blue (Ceratostigma griffithii or willmottianum, Caryopteris for example) or tall autumn asters in mauve (Aster laevis, turbinellus...). In bouquets, combine its pink flower panicles with white, pink, red, mauve, purple, or violet roses.