Hi Phoneygirl, welcome & nice to hear from you. I've seen these shrubs recommended on US websites - now I want one! According to the website of a major nursery I trust, they are fully hardy down to -15C. As a general rule plants are safer in the ground than they are in planters - unless you can put the planters in a frost free place. The roots are far less likely to freeze in the ground than in a planter.

So I'd pop these gorgeous bushes into the ground wherever you want them to grow. Their mature size =
Height - in metres - 2m (6ft)
Spread - in metres - 2.5m (8ft)
You can fill around them with temporary planting if they look a bit "lonely" - fill in with annuals or perennials that you can move or get rid of as the shrubs grow.

Don't forget to water well for the first year or so. They'll need at least a bucketful of water each per week - not a little dribble every day, but a proper, slowly applied soaking once a week. If we have heavy rain that will save you watering for a few days, provided they're not too close to a wall or fence that casts a rain shadow.

Re: Physocarpus
I have one that is 3 years old and it stands now 8ft tall with a spread of at least 6ft. I can assure you they are fully hardy. I live where temps get down to -18C regularly in winter and it sails through untouched. It is an easy plant to manage and apart from it's great colour it flowers then gets red berries.

Beattie, you can find these shrubs quite easily in the garden centres, there a couple of the bronze leaved ones aswell as the more common green leaved one.
Very hardy plants indeed !

By the way, Phoneygirl, i am SO glad to hear that you've done the reverse of what so many others do .....
you've REMOVED the gravel and laid turf ..... hooray :-))))
More people should return their gardens to their natural state and get away from this gravel/slab/hard landscaping trend.

Hi Beattie and Ojibway93, and thanks for the excellent responses. I will be planting my lovely diablos out asap tomorrow morning - they seem to have grown quite a bit in the 3 weeks since I purchased them even if the watering has been a bit spasmodic, although the heavy rainfall must have helped! I will follow your advice and look forward to a lovely display in the coming year or so. I will take some pics as they progress and will create a blog sometime soon. It must have taken me months to even find out the name of this beautiful plant but it has been well worth the wait. Gardening is already becoming an everyday 'must' for me, still got a long, long way to go and a lot of garden to fill and create and this site was one of those happy finds when googling a question about sambucus and how to cut them back - even found loads of answers to that one too. I'm sure there will be a lot more questions from me as I progress. Thanks again.

I love the Sambucus' too - we have similar tastes :-))
Have you seen the yellowy green leaved ones aswell as the dark ones ?

Hi Louise
Mine are the bronze diablo, didn't know about the green coloured ones (must check them out), it was their striking colour that drew me to them in the first place and yes, I was so glad to see that gravel loaded into a skip and replaced with a lush green lawn, great contrast for my lovely diablos when they are fully established.

Hi Louise
I have two sambucus - Sutherlands Gold and Black Lace, planted them about a year and a half ago and already they are about 7ft high, thus the googling about cutting them back, I think I planted them a little too close together but they are still beauties and add a great splash of colour in the corner of my garden and mask some of the rubbish that comes through from my neighbours garden (brambles, tall grass, weeds, you name it). Maybe I could post a question as to what I can plant to disguise it all, as I have an empty border at the moment having just dug up about 2 ft by 15ft of lawn to plant in it.

Sorry, one more question I forgot to ask, what size hole will I need to dig for my physocarpus and will I need to add any feed.

What size planters are they in? Dig a hole bigger than the planter or pot and incorporate some compost & blood fish & bone into the soil below and at the sides if you have it. I garden on extremely well drained, not to say dry soil and I mix in some water retaining granules as well. If you've got a clay soil you won't need any water retention tips, but you will need to make the hole a lot bigger than the pot the plant's in at the mo.

I wouldn't add a quick fertilizer such as Growmore at this time of year as it would encourage a lot of growth and it's rather late in the season for that. Some slow release stuff such as BF&B is OK, but not essential.

I normally chuck slow release fertilizer granules round the garden in spring - feeds the bulbs as they're dying off, and everything else as it comes into growth.

To your last question - deeper and wider than the rootball in the pot. Mix some bonemeal into the bottom of the hole, plant it in at the same level it was in the pot, backfill with compost, firm it down and water well for some weeks, even if it rains.

Hello and welcome, did you know that physocarpus are very easy to propagate, either hardwood or semi ripe cuttings, and you can get physocarpus with yellow foliage looks fantastic.

Water's the critical thing - keeping new plants watered in the ground isn't easy in summer, so make sure you apply a gallon or so every five days directly to the soil beneath the bush, even if its raining - unless the rain is torrential and going on for days at a time. Do that up till damp autumn weather arrives.
I like Diablo, but one I've seen recently that I love even more is 'Lady in Red', beautiful colour.

Thank you so much for this question - new to me and now on my wish list! I fancy coppertina!

Welcome Phoneygirl. I'm relatively new to the site, you will find it a greet resource.
I bought a Physocarpus Lady in Red earlier this year. From 30cm to around 1m already I am so please with it that I bought a gold coloured one 'Nugget' last week. I don't think you will be disappointed. Meadowland posted a picture iof her garden the other day with a gorgeous Physocarpus in the border. If you search for Meadowland in the members you will see from the pictures how beautiful your plant will look

Steragram - Coppertina is what Lady in Red is called in the USA - I had to research this late last year because I wanted Coppertina.

Thank you all so much for your input and advice, it is invaluable to an inexperienced gardener like me! I expected to plant my Diablos out today but it has been non-stop heavy rain, may try tonight if it clears a little. I must check out Lady in Red and Nugget, they sound equally eye-catching. Thanks also for pointing me in the direction of member 'Meadowfield', I will take a look at his/her photos. I think I will leave the propogating until I am a well established gardener and someone can give me a few lessons, I am sure I will get there one day because I am so enjoying all aspects of my new hobby, just from pottering about, tidying up, buying planters, visiting local nurseries and reading gardening magazines, not to mention this brilliant site and its ever so helpful members!
Thanks again, can't wait to show some photos when my garden starts taking shape.

Thank you Bamboo - that could save me a lot of searching!