False Indigo

Growth habit

Herbaceous

Perennation

Long-lived polycarpic perennial

Location

Urban Tree Collection, Bioswale Garden

Source of plant

White Flower Farm, Sooner Plant Farm, North Creek Nurseries, Klehm's Song Sparrow Perennial Farm

Description

Starlite Prairieblues™ is a long-lived, easy-to-grow hybrid Baptisia that will produce an impressive floral display every spring. It is one of the earliest Baptisia selections to bloom at the Chicago Botanic Garden, usually showing color 7 to 10 days before B. australis and Baptisia Twilite Prairieblues™. Initially vase-shaped, Starlite Prairieblues™ becomes broad-rounded with age and has the appearance ofa low, dense shrub. Its blue-green foliage remains clean and attractive all season. Vivid violet-lavender buds unfurl to periwinkle, lupinelike flowers with contrasting butter-cream keels. Starlite Prairieblues™ has oversized blossoms held on 24" tall racemes that extend well beyond the foliage and arch gracefully outward as they age. The flowers are positioned closely to each other, creating a very dramatic display in the garden or as a cut flower. The clean, blue-green foliage creates a fantastic backdrop for other flowering plants all summer long. In the late season the inflated seedpods turn charcoal-black andmake valuable additions to dried flower arrangements.

USDA Hardiness Zone

4