And it was love at first sight, though lust may be more accurate.
So I turned to three sources and learned some very encouraging things about Baptisia australis, common name Blue False Indigo.
From Tracy DiSabato-Aust: It’s slow to establish but becomes a tough, drought-tolerant and low-maintenance plant.
Graham Rice writes, "The flowers are followed by persistent 2-inch swollen pods that
turn black as they mature; the seeds inside rattle when ripe." Very cool - a plant that keeps changing while staying beautiful even after the flowers are gone.
Then Cutler and Ellis suggest we "cut the spikes of inflated blue-black seedpods midsummer for dried arrangements or leave them to add winter interest in the garden." This seedpod thing just keeps getting better. And they agree it’s drought-tolerant and has no known disease or pest problems.
And guess what - all baptisias are native to the Eastern U.S., so it’s a welcome addition to my list of native plants that are great garden plants. The only tricky part is that "slow to establish," which tests our patience, and we hate that. And its deep taproot really doesn’t react well to being moved. I happen to have a little story about that.
I knew it had a taproot and I really, really intended to plant mine and leave them alone but see, I made a small gardening error. I planted them just in front of a nice mass of asters, which stood at about an inch at the time. But by the time those asters bloomed they weighed down and totally smothered those poor baptisias - or so it appeared. But no, those babies popped right back up this spring. For their success they were yanked up and moved, however, because that mass of asters wasn’t going anywhere. But I handled them carefully, watered religiously, and even chopped off half the foliage, which seemed to do the trick because they look pretty happy again. I apologized to them, too, so that probably helped.
THE DETAILS
It grows to as large as 5 feet tall and wide, though the cultivar ‘Purple Smoke’ that I bought won’t get larger than 3′. Its May or June flowers last 2 to 4 weeks. Hardy in Zones 3-9. It takes full or partial sun, and seems adaptable to various soils. As for care, Tracy recommends cutting back by 1/3 after flowering. Man, that’s a tiny bit of maintenance for such a gorgeous plant.
Photo taken at Green Springs Garden.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Kim 06.04.07 at 9:03 pm
Timely post–my 3 baptisia are blooming right now for the first time ever! I bought them as 1-gallon pots in 2004, and they’re nowhere near their eventual size yet. Two notes:
1) They look amazing backlit. I have them where the morning sun hits them first thing, and then I usually find myself walking behind them to admire them backlit by the sunset anyway. I wish I had known that before I planted them, as I would have taken advantage of this.
2) Tracy DiSabato-Aust’s recommendation keeps them from being too sprawly, but it does sacrifice those seed pods. (I can’t wait to see those!)
Sparow 06.05.07 at 2:56 pm
My fianc and I planted one of these in the “wildlife” area in my parents’ backyard two years ago. They bloomed the first year, and agina this year. And, yeah the seedpods are cool-they look like little pea pods. It’s not a picky plant, in my experience, because we planted it in clay, and have never done any trimming or anything. My only concern is I’m not sure which variety it is—5 feet is massive for a final size! And, with that in mind, I hope it doesn’t smother the young Redbud it’s next to!
layanee 06.06.07 at 4:52 pm
Great picture. Great plant. You may want to try the new cultivars (unless you are strictly native) ‘Carolina Moonlight’ is a lovely yellow and the ‘Twilight Prairie Blues’ which has an indigo color to its’ flowers. Both great in addition to the original!
Callie Works-Leary 06.06.07 at 10:48 pm
Oooohhh, I wonder if Baptisia will work in North Texas. It would be a perfect addition ot my new perennial bed. What it is about plants with deep blue-purple blooms that is so intoxicating? What a wonderful mounding habit as well… This is going on my “plants to research” list.
Sylvana 06.10.07 at 11:26 am
Another trick that I learned for moving taproot plants is to undercut with a shovel, but not digging up the plant, and then transplant either later than year or early the next spring before the new roots have a chance to get too long.
I want some of this. Looks great.