Name: Baptisia australis (all the lists say that the common name for this plant is false indigo, but most people I know just call it baptisia.)
Type of Plant: Perennial plant for full sun/part sun, hardy from zones 3 to 9
Why I love this: Drought tolerant, blue flowers when the pink peonies are also blooming, and beautiful blue-green foliage the rest of the summer: what’s not to love? I value this perennial because it doesn’t require much work on the part of the gardener…a simple deadheading of the heavy seed pods after it finishes flowering is all this plant needs to remain attractive the rest of the season. As the temperatures cool the foliage becomes even more striking in grey-blue color. It’s not false anything…it’s the real deal when it comes to low-maintenance perennials!
A Word to the Wise: If you want to make deadheading even faster, and keep the plant a bit shorter for the rest of the summer, you can shear this perennial after it finishes flowering. This cuts off the pods and promotes a rounded shape. Use hedge trimmers or a battery-operated shearing tool.
I grow baptisia in a strip along the road I call “the dry garden.” I’ve planted it with a couple purple leaf Physocarpus, asters, yucca, yarrow, daylilies and Agastache. Random towers of Verbascum also crash this drought tolerant party.
