Plant Database
Royal Purple Smoke Bush
Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’
The Royal Purple Smoke Tree is a dramatic four-season performer, celebrated for its deep, wine-purple foliage that transforms to fiery scarlet in fall. In summer, it produces masses of smoky pink, hair-like flower panicles that envelop the plant in a purple haze. This tough, drought-tolerant, and deer-resistant shrub can be pruned as a large, rounded bush or trained into a striking small multi-trunked tree.
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Maintains rich, deep burgundy-purple foliage throughout spring and summer, turning brilliant shades of scarlet, orange, and purple in autumn.
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Produces abundant, feathery, smoke-like pink to purple flower plumes in mid-summer that persist for weeks, creating a unique, hazy effect.
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Extremely adaptable and low-maintenance; thrives in poor, rocky, or alkaline soils, is highly drought and heat tolerant once established, and is pest and deer resistant.
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Highly versatile: Can be pruned hard in late winter to maintain a dense, compact shrub with larger leaves, or lightly pruned to develop its natural, tree-like form with spectacular flowers.
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Provides exceptional color contrast against green foliage or light-colored walls.