{"id":97,"date":"2009-12-18T14:43:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-18T19:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/2009\/12\/18\/baptisia-2010-perennial-plant-of-the-year\/"},"modified":"2018-02-13T20:48:45","modified_gmt":"2018-02-14T01:48:45","slug":"baptisia-2010-perennial-plant-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/2009\/12\/18\/baptisia-2010-perennial-plant-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Baptisia &#8211; 2010 Perennial Plant of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_ZzNIw3ADWQo\/SyvVwjDffMI\/AAAAAAAAAB4\/Fryh8KnAc_Y\/s1600-h\/DSC_0364.JPG\"><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5416658006863477954\" style=\"margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 214px; float: left; height: 320px; cursor: hand;\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_ZzNIw3ADWQo\/SyvVwjDffMI\/AAAAAAAAAB4\/Fryh8KnAc_Y\/s320\/DSC_0364.JPG\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div>Blue false indigo(<em>Baptisia australis<\/em>) is a beautiful, long-lived, drought tolerant perennial with a robust growth habit and attractive steel blue foliage. In late May, the violet-blue flower spikes rise tall above sturdy 3-4 feet tall\u00a0plants with steel bluish-green foliage.<\/div>\n<div>Baptisias\u00a0grow\u00a0best in full sun\u00a0and\u00a0in moist, well-drained soils. Feed or fertilize\u00a0baptisias sparingly to prevent plants from flopping over.\u00a0\u00a0If grown in full sun, no staking is necessary.\u00a0Plants are\u00a0heat and drought tolerant and are rarely troubled by\u00a0diseases and insects.<\/div>\n<p><em>Baptisia australis<\/em>\u00a0was selected Perennial Plant Of The Year in 2010 by the Perennial Plant Association.\u00a0 Other species of <em>Baptisias<\/em> include\u00a0lavender blue (<em>B. minor<\/em>), white (<em>B. alba<\/em>), bright yellow (<em>B. sphaerocarpa<\/em>) and bicolors\u00a0bloom\u00a0from May into early June (in Tennessee). Modern day cultivars are usually hybrids. Each species or cultivar will bloom for\u00a02-3 weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Plants grown in partial shade may appear stretched or leggy, often requiring staking. Fewer flower spikes are produced in shady places. The only maintenance that I perform is removing thee pea -like pods that form within a month after flowering. I feel the pods detract from the clean shrub-like appearance of baptisias. In late fall I cut plants down to the ground and add\u00a0all\u00a0vegetation to a compost bin.<\/p>\n<p>The single plant spreads slowly by rhizomes and eventually crowds out neighboring plants. Divide a plant clump every 5 -6 years and share divisions with gardening friends or start new plantings. It can be used in fresh flower arrangements.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"container\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Blue false indigo(Baptisia australis) is a beautiful, long-lived, drought tolerant perennial with a robust growth habit and attractive steel blue foliage. In late May, the violet-blue flower spikes rise tall above sturdy 3-4 feet tall\u00a0plants with steel bluish-green foliage. Baptisias\u00a0grow\u00a0best in full sun\u00a0and\u00a0in moist, well-drained soils. Feed or fertilize\u00a0baptisias sparingly to prevent plants from flopping [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1110,674,806,774,551,627,625,843,812,630,705],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10571,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions\/10571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}