Baptisia Species, False Indigo, Blue Wild Indigo

Wonderful plant for me in its fourth season now, originally wintersown in milk jugs and transplanted into the garden as a tiny seedling. ...Read MoreA scrawny thing in its second year, still lanky but flowering in its third, now filling out and taking up quite a lot of space in its fourth.

I have these in a "hell strip" location where the height needs to stay low enough for visibility when backing out of the driveway. The foliage stays under two feet, with flowering stems less than three feet, so it works for me.

It does get quite wide, though. If you have lower things that don't mind some shade, they could be closer to the stems but underneath the foliage. The six I have really dominate the bed now, so I will be removing 3-4 of them so that the others can shine more as specimen plants and leave me more room for other plants with different (or longer) bloom times.

The bloom season for these isn't terribly long, but they have excellent foliage that contrasts nicely with grasses.

Love this plant - it's such a nice compact size, the folige is an interesting blueish grey/green, and it's tough as nails. Mine grows in ...Read Moreclay with minimal to no watering, even in 100+ degree weather when it doesn't rain for 3 weeks at a time. I love that it requires no staking and is small and airy enough to fit almost anywhere. My oly complaint is that the gorgeous flowers don't last very long - 3 weeks at most.

Have this in a part sun location and it does well, also mine gets 3-4 feet high.

This is a great plant of very useful habit. I wish breeders would use this to produce new hybrids instead of the big ones hitting the mar...Read Moreket. A 5' wide perennial is something harder to use. This one is however perfect for a perennial in the everyday landscape. You cant go wrong and it is native plus interesting.