This is not a plant much on my radar so the various cultivars don't ring a bell for me. I tried this on a lark a few years ago: http://www.woodlanders.net/index.cfm?fuseaction=plants.plantDetail&plant_id=1358

Seems reasonably hardy in the recent winters. It perhaps would have had a lot of snow cover in the prior 2, but this winter it probably saw the upper single digits w/o snow cover and seems perfectly fine so far. They don't seem grow very fast, and that coupled with the general blah-ness of the flowers make me wonder if these are plants only a collector could love.

Not sure what to make of Dirr's southern vernacular garden writing style, but "graceful as a cardboard cutout" isn't a very inspiring image. http://www.ballpublishing.com/GrowerTalks/ViewArticle.aspx?articleID=21697

At the rate mine is growing, it will take 125 years to reach 12' X 12', so I'm not worried about that happening in my life. Maybe they speed up, considerably. For now I'm reminded of the agonizingly slow Cephalotaxus 'Duke Gardens'.

reviewing my past posts - I only planted out D. 'Piroche form' for the 2nd cold winter. I seem to recall it had a bit of burning above the snow line but was mostly OK. OTOH I reported that a big one at Udel. arboretum (D. myricoides) was killed outright after the first cold winter, while a D. racemosum at least was resprouting. I'lll have to look for it again the next time I'm there, but I think it might have been one of the ones finished off by the second part of the one-two punch. I wonder if they were over-fertilizing some of their plants. With marginal BLEs you really need to grow them lean so they harden off well in the fall.

My 'Blue Cascade' is actually picking up speed now -- as long as it doesn't die back. I would say it grows 6 to 8 inches per season. I'm having to trim it back a bit.