Baptisia has arrived.\u00a0 Anyone who took the recent Garden Tour in my town saw at least one baptisia in each of the five private gardens, including mine.\u00a0 They are everywhere–in catalogs, garden centers and even big box stores.\u00a0 Sometimes they stand alone; other times, they are positioned near their cousins, the difficult but sought after lupines.\u00a0 Instant gratification seekers pluck the lupines off the shelves.\u00a0 Experienced gardeners know that baptisia is much less likely to disappoint them.<\/p>\n
Anyone who has ever grown peas, beans or other members of the legume or Leguminosae family will recognize baptisia\u2019s characteristic papilionaceous or butterfly-like flowers.\u00a0 The little \u201cbutterflies\u201d perch atop three-foot stems, clustered in spikes or racemes that wave in the breeze.\u00a0 Each flower spike generally has ten or more individual blossoms.\u00a0 Depending on the species, cultivar or hybrid, the flowers can be white, blue, blue-purple, yellow or bi-colored.\u00a0 Dark green leaflets alternate on the stems in groups of three.\u00a0 A happy baptisia will increase in size over the years, forming a healthy clump with a multitude of stalks.\u00a0 It is a good idea to prepare for that eventuality and leave a little breathing room around the plant when you install it.<\/p>\n
Baptisia is sometimes known as \u201cfalse indigo,\u201d because of its resemblance to related plants in the genus Indigofera.\u00a0 These true indigos have long been dyers\u2019 favorites, producing a strong blue color in fabrics.\u00a0 Plantsman and nursery owner Tony Avent prefers to call baptisia \u201credneck lupine.\u201d\u00a0 Avent, who would happily identify himself as a redneck horticulturist, bestowed the nickname because many species in the genus are native to parts of the south and make excellent stand-ins for lupine, which dislikes southern heat and humidity.<\/p>\n
Horticultural fashion is a fickle thing, but the spotlight has been on baptisia over the past decade.\u00a0 Since the plant is tough, drought-resistant and unpalatable to wildlife, breeders have worked hard to create colorful new hybrids for the commercial market.\u00a0 In 1996, the late Dr. Rob Gardener, of the North Carolina Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill, introduced \u2018Purple Smoke\u2019.\u00a0 He followed that up in 2002 with the pale yellow \u2018Carolina Moonlight\u2019.\u00a0 These are still available through catalog merchants.\u00a0 More recently, a group of Midwestern plant organizations including the Chicago Botanic Garden, the Morton Arboretum and the Ornamental Grower\u2019s Association of Northern Illinois, formed \u201cChicagoland Grows,\u201d a trademarked plant introduction and marketing initiative.\u00a0 Among the plants introduced by this group are a number of beautiful baptisia.\u00a0 Notable among them are plants in the Prairieblues Series, bred by Dr. James Ault of the Chicago Botanic Garden.\u00a0 These include dark blue \u2018Midnight\u2019; lighter blue \u2018Starlite\u2019; the purple\/yellow bi-colored \u2018Twilite\u2019 and the yellow \u2018Solar Flare\u2019.\u00a0 The Prairieblues plants are hybrids of two baptisia species, the blue-flowered Baptisia australis and Baptisia sphaerocarpa.\u00a0 Other notable Chicagoland Grows introductions include \u2018Lavender Rose\u2019, which is reddish purple and \u2018Lunar Eclipse\u2019, a blue and white bi-color.<\/p>\n
For those who like plants in the currently chic chocolate-brown range, Minnesota breeder Hans Hansen has produced hybrids including \u2018Chocolate Chip\u2019 and \u2018Dutch Chocolate\u2019.\u00a0 Hansen\u2019s \u2018Blueberry Sundae\u2019 is a purple-blue variety.<\/p>\n
If you decide to combine common sense with a bow to horticultural fashion and grow false indigo in your garden, remember to treat it more like a shrub than a perennial.\u00a0 Poor soil is no problem, but give the plants enough room at the outset, as they dislike being disturbed after they are established.\u00a0 Install them in the middle to back of the border to show off their statuesque beauty to best advantage.\u00a0 Once the mid-spring bloom period is over, cut back the spent flower spikes, but otherwise leave the plant alone until late fall.\u00a0 The black seedpods and the pretty foliage make it worthwhile to wait until October or so to cut the stalks back to four to six inches above the ground.<\/p>\n
You may not be the only gardener in your neighborhood to grow baptisia, but if you choose one of the bi-colors or other flashy introductions, you can still stand out from the common suburban herd.\u00a0 Find a good baptisia selection at Plant Delights Nursery, 9241 Sauls Road, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27603; (919) 772-4794; www.plantdelights.com<\/a>.\u00a0 For a paper catalog, send ten first class stamps or a box of chocolates.\u00a0 For the Prairieblues Series, go to Hallson Gardens, PO Box 220, Brooklyn, MI 49230, (866) 568-1474, www.perennialnursery.com<\/a>.\u00a0 N<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Baptisia has arrived.\u00a0 Anyone who took the recent Garden Tour in my town saw at least one baptisia in each of the five private gardens, including mine.\u00a0 They are everywhere–in catalogs, garden centers and even big box stores.\u00a0 Sometimes they stand alone; other times, they are positioned near their cousins, the difficult but sought after … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2],"tags":[16,17,15],"class_list":["post-385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-spring","tag-baptisia","tag-legume-family","tag-lupine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1486,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions\/1486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}