where are you.. big city name..z6 is almost half the US and rather divergent...

how big was the transplant.. how did you plant it.. how did you do aftercare ..

you really shouldnt expect much in the year of transplant.. its doing al its work with the roots... i would not make presumptions about growth during the first year..

how dark is the area.. plants with white or yellow tissue might do poorly in a very dark spot ... lower growth rate would be one issue ... how many hours does this spot get.. at what hours of the day ....

there would be no reason you cant move the first plant.. except that you will delay its growth another year.. due to the transplant ...

ken

Hi, thanks for your reply. Zone 6, Boston, it was a small specimen from a mail order nursery I’ve used for many, many years with no problem. It is listed as suitable for part-full shade and was planted in an area of shade with dappled sunlight at midday. The soil was amended with compost. I grow hostas in this area. It was watered weekly.

I understand plants work on putting down roots during the first season but was surprised it put out almost no top growth. Will try again!

Aralia Sun King is a perennial, not a shrub, and late to come up. I’m in your zone and don’t expect mine to appear for several more months. Hang tight!

I have one in fairly deep shade. As mentioned it is quite late to emerge, but I keep the spot marked so I can set 'dog-feet protection' in place when I see it.

I would not call it fast growing- if anything it is very slow. In my case I always put that down to the deep shade situation it lives in as well as the enormous trees it is next to sucking up all the moisture- these are very tough conditions I have back there. Last year I did have a few trees taken out and it should see a bit more light this year, so we'll see.

At any rate I don't expect to see it emerge for a while yet.

Here are two photos- in the first it is the tiny plant inside white wire directly over top of the "2020" written in the date.

Second photo is two years later, July 2022.

I have one in shade (only a couple of hours of morning sun) in Zone 5ish/6ish. It is bright, but it didn't get as big as I would have liked. Good news is that each year it has been bigger than the year before, so maybe it takes awhile? This is only the fourth year, so I'm hoping it will become the taller backround plant I had originally hoped it would be!

Thanks, NHBabs! You give me hope! Maybe it just takes time and patience to grow it to full size.