As its name suggests, this is a plant that makes you sit up and take notice; nothing subtle here! Having said that, Astilbe 'Alive and Kicking' is a graceful plant, with good proportions and rather open, arching flower-spikes (I'm not keen on the stiffer "bottle-brush" flowers of some cultivars). It came to us from Marwood Hill Gardens http://www.marwoodhillgarden.co.uk, just up the road, which holds a National Collection of Astilbe. Marwood's Head Gardener and Astilbe guru, Malcolm Pharoah, reports that 'Alive and Kicking' is a new introduction from Holland, where it was raised by Harrie Verduin, the father of many cultivars, including a series named for musical connections, among them 'Rock and Roll', 'Drum and Bass', 'Rhythm and Blues' and 'Jump and Jive'.
Astilbe 'Alive and Kicking' is quite tall; ours have been in the ground for three seasons, in a suitably damp position, and the tips of the flower spikes are just shy of 1 m from ground level. The deeply serrated leaves are a fresh, bright green and the whole plant has a vigorous constitution. The unfurling foliage is a delight in early spring, being richly infused with copper and reddish tones. Like all Astilbes, the tiny individual flowers seem to be a magnet for the smaller hoverflies, which are fascinating to watch if you can contrive a seating arrangement (possibly with a glass of something cooling on the side) where the flower spikes are at eye level.
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