Prairie aristocrats please!

Today I would like to come to the rescue of one of my best friends of perennial plants, Baptisia. People have been calling it names - and not nice ones. It used to be false lupine, or wild indigo, which is just about acceptable but what, now people in America are calling it redneck- or even worse bastard- lupine! There is nothing illegitimate, spurious or inferior about Baptisia. Quite the contrary! It is the noblest perennial plant one could wish to grow. What is so difficult about Baptisia? It sounds perfectly simple and lovely to me. Oh! - it is only striking me now that you might not have even heard these unpleasant names at all and that I am creating the wrong sort of propaganda by introducing them to you. Please forgive me for this and allow me to praise this wonderful plant to you.

Why I love Baptisia so much is very simple; it is a beautiful, easy, carefree and long lived plant. Now, if you are the type of gardener who likes his flowers bigger, heavier and fuller than everybody else’s, I fear I am going to have to let you go, since Baptisia will make no impression on you whatever. It is a prairie plant that has been hybridized very little and so it looks rather sparse next to a Russell or Westcountry lupine (in the same way that a pretty wild Dahlia looks demure next to a silly giant dinner plate one) but what Baptisia lacks in quantity it gains it in quality. The flower spikes are most elegant and the individual petals positively glow with vibrance like fine silk velvet. The foliage is nice and sturdy and remains attractive the entire season, long after the plain lupines have been attacked by black flies and collapsed in a heap of mess.
It is a plant that takes its time and will not reward the impatient gardener however. One usually has to wait three years for a cutting or a seedling to give its first flower and another two years for it to show off nicely but like a peony or a hosta it will increase in size and beauty every year, will not need division or cosseting and will most likely outlive you, being so trouble-free.
The most common Baptisia in cultivation is B. australis and deservedly so. It has lovely deep blue flowers in late spring followed by nice slate grey seed capsules that look like inflated pea pods. Then there is a paler blue one, B. minor, a tall white one with grey stems, B. alba macrophylla, a bright yellow one with particularly slender stalks that I adore, B. sphaerocarpa, and a rather different one with arching stems and lovely primrose yellow flowers, B. leucophaea. All of them make wonderful cut foliage, flowers and seedpods.
It is an interesting fact that until recently plants from North America were more cultivated and improved on the European side of the Atlantic. We English have dramatically improved New England and New York Asters, whilst Germans and more recently Dutch gardeners worked on Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium) Veronicastrums and perennial sunflowers (Helianthus). With Baptisias however, it is a different story and for once hybrids come from their homeland. There aren’t many of them yet but the ones available are outstanding. From North Carolina Botanical Gardens comes the nicest of all called ‘Purple Smoke’ with pale mauve flowers above grey-blue foliage (right and top of page) and also the excellent ‘Carolina Moonlight’ with primrose yellow flowers on a vigorous plant. More recently, Chicago Botanical Gardens gave us two new ones: ‘Twilite Prairieblues’ with purple-brown and yellow flowers (an unlikely combination that works well, even if the flowers hide somewhat in the bluish foliage) and ‘Starlite Prairieblues’ with gentle pale blue suffused flowers.
How does one acquire any of these beauties then? Apart from Baptisia australis, few nurseries in the United Kingdom sell any of them. The best way to get species is to procure some seeds from the United States, Germany or seed exchanges and sow them in the autumn in pots that will be left out of doors to the vagaries of the weather, which will help lift their dormancy. Be careful that the mice don’t get at them! They germinate readily in the spring and grow steadily, if slowly at first. The plants can be put in the garden when still quite small without trouble, but I personally wait a season before tempting fate. Slugs do like them in their tender age.
Most books will tell you that Baptisia resent disturbance and cannot be divided but from experience I know that they it can be done successfully, although I am not saying it is an easy thing to do! The digging is quite an operation as the plant grows huge forked roots that seem to descend all the way to Hades and it is all too easy to severe most of the viable parts off in the process. One also finds that there are actually few pieces to work with as most of the eyes congregate in a tight cluster (as with a peony or Gypsophila). Any section with eyes and a bit of root will bounce back once replanted however and start blooming again after two seasons’ growth. I have divided all of the hybrids for exporting, root washed them, and they grew back quite well once replanted. This said, by far the easiest way to multiply the cultivars is by taking cuttings. They root easily if taken early in the season. They don’t always form dormant growth for the following spring though and so it is best to plant more than one needs just in case.

No excuse to have sickly lupines in your borders now, dig them up and plant Baptisia instead, I dare you to!