Baptisia Solar Flare

8 Guests

3 Bedrooms

2 Bathrooms

Website

The most distincly colored selection on the market.

Looking for a uniquely colored, vigorous, native perennial that will stop traffic and feed pollinators? Baptisia ‘Solar Flare’ features lush, purplish stems in spring, followed by golden yellow flowers that take on a unique orange-to-maroon hue with age. A vigorous, easy-to-grow hybrid baptisia from the Chicagoland Grows® Plant Collection, developed by Dr. Jim Ault of the Chicago Botanic Garden, Solar Flare is covered in beautiful flowers in early summer. Your customers and the bees will thank you. This striking plant makes an excellent specimen but is also effective massed at the back of a perennial border. Can be an outstanding addition to a mixed border or grouped for a naturalistic effect in prairie or meadow settings. Its durability lends it to low-maintenance landscapes. The upright stems and their lack of lowermost foliage lend this selection to close interplanting with shorter perennials, unlike some false indigos such as B. australis.

Cultural Details

TYPE

Perennial

U.S. NATIVE

YES

Light:

Full sun
Soil:

Moist, but well-drained, fairly adaptable to many soils
Moisture:

Drought tolerant once established
Hardiness Zone

4-9
Bloom Time:

Late spring
Bloom Color:

Yellow to red
Fruit Time

Fall
Fruit Color

Gray
Size:

4' tall by 4.5' wide
Diseases & Pests:

False indigos exhibit good to excellent disease resistance. A seed weevil will predate the seed, but this does not detract from either plant health or display value. The genista broom moth caterpillar (Uresiphita reversalis) can seriously defoliate plants of Baptisia, but this tends to be more of a problem in warmer climes.

View the Floorplan

What Makes Me Special?

Stunning flowers that age from golden yellow to orangey-maroon and put on quite a show in the garden.

Landscape Use

Borders, foundations, mass plantings, matrix plantings, naturalized gardens, commercial plantings

Origin

The Prairieblues™ false indigos were developed by Jim Ault, Ph.D., at the Chicago Botanic Garden from crosses made between 1999 and 2004. The selections were developed from crossing Baptisia albescens (formerly B. alba), B. australis var. australis, B. australis var. minor, B. bracteata (formerly B. leucophaea), B. sphaerocarpa, and B. tinctoria in various c ombinations. All parent plants and selections were grown in-ground at the Chicago Botanic Garden (USDA Zone 5b) during the breeding and selection process.