Noteworthy CharacteristicsUnique bicolor flowers on a long-lived, tough plant with attractive foliage. Fixes nitrogen in the soil, like other members of the legume family.

CareProvide full sun and most any well-drained soil. Baptisias have an easy-to-snap taproot and resent being transplanted. Decide carefully where to put this plant, and leave it alone for at least four to five years. If you do transplant it, treat it like a shrub and move it with the soil intact in a large root-ball. The plant can be cut back after flowering to encourage a flush of new blue-green growth. You will lose the ornamental black seedpods, however, which persist into fall. Alternatively, wait until after the first hard frost to cut back.