The Perennial Plant Association has chosen blue false indigo, Baptisia australis, as its 2010 perennial plant of the year.  Other common names for the plant are wild indigo, baptisia, indigo weed, rattleweed and rattlebrush.

      The Perennial Plant Association describes the plant as follows:  “Newly emerging shoots produce violet-blue, lupine-like flowers in erect 10- to 12-inch racemes atop flower stems extending well above the foliage mound of clover-like, trifoliate, blue-green leaves.”  Many of several sources researched mention the dramatic combination of leaf and flower color in the early blooming season.

      Blue false indigo grows three to four feet tall and four feet wide, making it a good plant for the back of the border.  The first few years, the plant will have just a few stems and appear sparse.  It will take three years or so for the plant to reach full size, so keep that in mind when placing other plants around it.

      Blue false indigo is a native prairie plant,  It grows best in full sun and is drought tolerant.  Plants grown in shade may become floppy and require staking and produce fewer and less vibrant flowers.

      This plant has a taproot, a single root like a carrot, so decide where you want it and plan to leave it there as it is almost impossible to transplant and cannot be divided.  With luck you can expect indigo to live for 20 years or more.

      Blue false indigo blooms in spring and early summer and then produces large pods which turn charcoal black when ripe.  The dried pods are beautiful in flower arrangements and rattle in the wind, thus the common names rattleweed and rattlebrush.  In earlier times, children used the pods as rattles.  The name “indigo” refers to use by early Americans as a dye, although it was inferior to the true indigo of the West Indies.

      Blue false indigo is a good plant for cottage gardens, native plant gardens, prairies and meadows.  Since it has a shrub-like habit, it is also useful as a specimen plant or planted in small groups. 

      Butterflies are attracted to the flowers.  There are no serious insect or disease problems and deer seldom bother it due to its bitter taste.

      Blue wild indigo is propagated by seed.  You may find seedlings growing under your plant that can be transplanted when very young.  If you collect dried seed to grow on your own, the outside of the hard seed must be scratched with a metal file or sandpaper or nicked with a sharp knife to weaken the seed coat to allow it to germinate.

      One out of every three bites of food we eat is provided through the work of animal and insect pollinators.  The mysterious colony collapse disorder among commercial honeybees, disease and loss of habitat have severely affected pollinators that sustain our food crops and quality of life.

      Other insects besides bees act as important pollinators.  These include butterflies, beetles, moths, wasps, flies and even mosquitoes.  Hummingbirds are also significant pollinators.

      It is important to encourage pollinators in our yards and ensure their health so they are able to continue their important work.  To do this, we need to make our yards and gardens hospitable to pollinators and their larvae.  They need food, shelter and water, just as we do.

      Butterflies generally are attracted to bright flowering plants in full sun, protected from the wind.  Some good shrubs for butterflies are spicebush, eastern ninebark and aromatic sumac.  Perennial flowers include milkweed, daisy fleabane, tickseed, joe-pye-weed, sunflowers, sneezeweed, blazing star, beebalm, phlox, coneflower, heath aster and wake robin.  Wet muddy areas provide butterflies with moisture and minerals they need to stay healthy. 

      Bees, wasps, beetles and flies are not as exciting or as pretty as butterflies.  Nevertheless, it is increasingly important to make them welcome in our yards as the commercial bee population continues its decline.

      Good trees and shrubs to invite these pollinators are maple, service berry, pin cherry, black willow and linden.  Helpful flowers are black cohosh, red columbine, yellow trout lily, gentian, alum root, cardinal flower, Virginia bluebells, foamflower and spiderwort.  Herbs like mint, garlic, chives, oregano, parsley and lavender and annual flowers including zinnias, cosmos and single sunflowers also provide food for pollinators.

      Plant flowers in groups for more efficient pollination.  The pollinators learn where to find pollen in each type of flower and with several of the same species nearby they won’t have to explore each new flower to try to locate it, in the process wasting valuable pollen as it falls off their bodies.

      A little planning and attention to bloom season will provide your yard with beauty and food for insects from early spring to late fall.  Plant a diversity of plants to provide food for different pollinators.  Vary colors, fragrances and heights to attract different pollinator species.

      To further encourage these insects, allow things to become a little messy – leaf litter, weeds and dead branches all provide shelter.  Provide a pool, pond or even small containers of water for drinking.  Sloping sides or stones for them to stand on will prevent them from drowning.

      If you must use pesticides – which are extremely toxic to pollinators – use great caution, use as little as possible, and make sure you are using the proper pesticide for the problem you have.

      There is a website you can visit to find more information on making your yard a haven for pollinators.  Visit www.pollinators.org and enter your ZIP code for specific plant recommendations.

      Early September is a wonderful time to take a drive out of town to see beautiful wildflowers along the roadsides.  Let’s take a look at what’s blooming now.

      Queen Anne’s Lace is a white lacy flat-topped flower.  It is also known as wild carrot and in fact is the predecessor to our garden carrots.   It is similar in appearance to a few other plants including water hemlock, an extremely poisonous plant.  Look for a tiny black floret in the middle of the white flower to identify it positively.  Queen Anne’s Lace grows from 1-3 feet tall and can become invasive.  After bloom, the flower clusters dry and curl upward, giving the appearance of bird’s nests.  The dried blooms are often used in fall floral arrangements.

      Chicory has beautiful sky-blue flowers spaced along a tough wiry stem.  They blossom in the morning but by afternoon each flower is finished with its bloom and the plant is rather ugly.  Chicory grows 1-4 feet tall.  Its roots can be roasted and ground and used as a coffee substitute.  It has long, toothed basal leaves similar to a dandelion’s.  They are high in vitamins and minerals, but quite bitter.

      There are 20 types of goldenrod in Wisconsin.  The one you will most likely see roadside is Canada goldenrod.  Its bright golden flowers are in a plumy pyramid shape atop the plant.  The leaves are narrow, up to 6 inches long and rough to the touch with toothed edges.  If you are lucky you may spot stiff goldenrod.  It has many small yellow flowerheads in flat clusters and the leaves are rounder and fleshier than Canada goldenrod. 

      There are many types of sunflowers and sunflower look-alikes blooming in September.  You really need to check a wildflower identification book to be sure which one you are seeing.  Some of the possibilities are tall sunflower, wood sunflower, ox-eye sunflower, downy sunflower, rosinweed, compass plant, cup plant and prairie dock.  Prairie dock is the easiest to identify.  It has huge basal leaves up to 18 inches long and 12 inches wide, and a straight stem up to ten feet tall that branches at the top into several stems holding bright yellow flowers.  Before bloom, the buds are hard green knobby things about an inch in diameter. 

      Another yellow flower you might be lucky enough to catch sight of is the subject of many beautiful watercolor paintings, the coneflower.  Again, there are many different coneflowers so a field guide is necessary for proper id.  Some of the coneflowers you might see are gray-headed coneflower, green-headed coneflower, thin-leaved coneflower, and brown-eyed Susan.  They all share one thing in common – their flower petals hang downward around a cone-shaped center.

      New England Asters are one of the last flowers of the season.  Their bright purple daisy-like flowers bloom long into the fall.  Some of the plants are so big they appear to be shrubs.  The nectar is a favorite for migrating monarch butterflies.

Annual flowers bloom, set seed and die in one growing season. Perennial flowers live three, five or even thirty years. At first glance, it would seem that perennial plants are the way to go to save both the time of replanting each year and the money spent every year to purchase annuals.

      There is more of a financial investment in a perennial plant than in an annual plant.  Annuals can be purchased in 4- or 6-packs for about 25¢ a plant, or grown from seed for only pennies.  Perennial plants may cost from a few dollars for something like an astilbe to $70 for a yellow Bartzella peony.

      Besides their lifespan, there is one other important difference between annuals and perennials.  While most annuals blossom all summer long, perennials have a shorter bloom period.  Some flower for only a week or so, while others like yarrow, coreopsis, and catmint may bloom for a month or even more.  But some of those perennials are so beautiful that the one week of breathtaking bloom is worth the spot they occupy in the garden.

      After planting, annuals basically need watering and sometimes deadheading of spent flowers to keep turning out blooms all season.  Some perennials need deadheading after bloom and then division every three years or so, and cutting back in fall or spring. 

      Ideally your garden would have something in bloom at all times.  Here’s how it works in the garden I have around my pond.   In spring, daffodils bloom first.  Red tulips overlap the daffodil bloom.  Pink and white bleeding hearts come next, along with white and purple violets.  At the pond’s edge, yellow irises bloom.  Next comes dark red and light pink peonies.  As soon as those finish, the roses come into bloom along with comfrey, spiderwort, creeping bellflower, speedwell, yellow yarrow, lemon lilies and coreopsis.  In the pond, pink waterlilies look so perfect you’d think they were fake.

      On the slope in back of the pond, creeping baby’s breath has small pink and white flowers, snow-in-summer shows pure white blooms, lemon thyme has purple blossoms and creeping sedum displays bright yellow starry flowers. 

      Soon red yarrow, white campanula, orange dayliles and purple Russian sage will bloom.  Behind the pond, another creeping sedum will bloom in dusty rose and germander will show its pink blooms.  The snow-in-summer and creeping baby’s breath that I cut back after first bloom will produce a few more flowers. 

      In late summer and fall when all the other plants have finished their bloom, ‘Summer Glory’ and ‘Autumn Joy’ sedums will bloom in light and dark rose.

      It took many years to get this garden blooming in succession the way I wanted it.  Still, there are times when it looks drab.  That’s why I let white alyssum, pretty johnny-jump-ups and airy cosmos self-seed, and I move containers of petunias and geraniums among the perennial plants wherever needed.

      Spring is the best time for transplanting or dividing most plants but there are some that should be transplanted later in the growing season.

      Irises are transplanted or divided as soon as they finish flowering.  Cut the flower stems off and cut the leaves back to 4-6 inches with a scissors, leaving a fan of leaves.  Lift the rhizomes (the roots) out of the ground and cut off any diseased or rotten areas.  Replant the rhizomes so that the top half of each rhizome is above the soil line.  Irises look nice planted in circles of 6-10 plants with the rhizomes toward the center like spokes on a wheel.

      Peonies are best transplanted in late summer.  Lift the plants and you’ll see thick, fleshy roots with new, pink, pointed shoots or eyes.  Cut each root into sections with 4-5 eyes each.  Dig a hole 8-10 inches deep and plant with the shoots no more than two inches below the soil surface.  Water well and check to make sure that the roots haven’t sunk too deeply into the loose soil.  If they have, lift them up and reset them at the correct depth.  Planting too deeply is the most common reason peonies fail to bloom.

      Tulips, daffodils and other spring flowering bulbs should be transplanted in mid-October just about the time when you’d be planting newly purchased bulbs.  Of course in October you’ll have no idea where your underground bulbs are located since the foliage has long since died back.  If you are intent upon transplanting spring bulbs in fall, make sure to place a marker in the soil of your flowerbed before removing the dead foliage in summer so that you’ll know where to dig when it’s time to transplant.

      September is a good time to transplant trees and woody shrubs.  In autumn, they are entering a period of dormancy so their energy is going into their roots rather than being expended on producing new foliage and above-ground growth.  So along with the shock of being transplanted, they have to deal with only one other task, rather than two. 

      The same is true of most perennial flowers.  Move them in early September so they have to chance to get established in their new location before the ground freezes.  After transplanting, mulch trees, shrubs and flowers with shredded leaves, ground bark or straw to retain moisture and moderate soil temperatures.

      What if you absolutely must move your hostas or your bee balm in mid-summer?  It can be done, but try to dig as large soil ball as you can around the roots so they are disturbed as little as possible.  After replanting, water daily.  If the new location is sunny or windy, rig up something to provide shade and wind protection for a couple weeks until the plant is established.  With extra care, any plant can be moved at any time during the growing season.

      Annual flowers bloom, set seed and die in one growing season.  Perennial flowers live three, five or even thirty years.  At first glance, it would seem that perennial plants are the way to go to save both the time of replanting each year and the money spent every year to purchase annuals.

      There is more of a financial investment in a perennial plant than in an annual plant.  Annuals can be purchased in 4- or 6-packs for about 25¢ a plant, or grown from seed for only pennies.  Perennial plants may cost from a few dollars for something like an astilbe to $70 for a yellow Bartzella peony.

      Besides their lifespan, there is one other important difference between annuals and perennials.  While most annuals blossom all summer long, perennials have a shorter bloom period.  Some flower for only a week or so, while others like yarrow, coreopsis, and catmint may bloom for a month or even more.  But some of those perennials are so beautiful that the one week of breathtaking bloom is worth the spot they occupy in the garden.

      After planting, annuals basically need watering and sometimes deadheading of spent flowers to keep turning out blooms all season.  Some perennials need deadheading after bloom and then division every three years or so, and cutting back in fall or spring. 

      Ideally your garden would have something in bloom at all times.  Here’s how it works in the garden I have around my pond.   In spring, daffodils bloom first.  Red tulips overlap the daffodil bloom.  Pink and white bleeding hearts come next, along with white and purple violets.  At the pond’s edge, yellow irises bloom.  Next comes dark red and light pink peonies.  As soon as those finish, the roses come into bloom along with comfrey, spiderwort, creeping bellflower, speedwell, yellow yarrow, lemon lilies and coreopsis.  In the pond, pink waterlilies look so perfect you’d think they were fake.

      On the slope in back of the pond, creeping baby’s breath has small pink and white flowers, snow-in-summer shows pure white blooms, lemon thyme has purple blossoms and creeping sedum displays bright yellow starry flowers. 

      Soon red yarrow, white campanula, orange dayliles and purple Russian sage will bloom.  Behind the pond, another creeping sedum will bloom in dusty rose and germander will show its pink blooms.  The snow-in-summer and creeping baby’s breath that I cut back after first bloom will produce a few more flowers. 

      In late summer and fall when all the other plants have finished their bloom, ‘Summer Glory’ and ‘Autumn Joy’ sedums will bloom in light and dark rose.

      It took many years to get this garden blooming in succession the way I wanted it.  Still, there are times when it looks drab.  That’s why I let white alyssum, pretty johnny-jump-ups and airy cosmos self-seed, and I move containers of petunias and geraniums among the perennial plants wherever needed.

      My dairy farmer neighbors sold their herd last June and have turned their attention to landscaping their farmyard.  A year ago they hired a landscaping company who at great expense installed a small pond, put some plantings around it, planted a mis-labeled tree, and then went out of business.

      I’ve been asked to revive and replant the area.  Many of the landscaper-installed perennials have died and weeds have taken over the bed. 

      Here’s the problem:  the area is almost entirely in the shade all day long and I am admittedly weak in knowledge of shade gardening.  Hosta, violets and lily-of-the-valley are the plants that come immediately to mind and two of those have a tendency to get out of control.  The third, hosta, is not a favorite of my farmer friends.

      At the library I checked out every shade gardening book on the shelves.  The internet is also a good resource, but I prefer books.  I quickly paged through the books and chose the two best, based on good photos and growing information. 

      I went through the chosen books more slowly, keeping in mind that the homeowners like the colors pink, blue, lavender and white, and made a list of all the possibilities for their garden.  I immediately eliminated anything that wasn’t hardy in our area. 

      Some of the things I had to keep in mind were: 1) the pond –it is the focal point and the plants around it should look natural, be low enough so the pond can be seen, and draw the eye to the pond   2) the tree – plants grown under the tree need shallow roots so they are not competing with the tree roots.  Also, tall plants won’t look good in this bed with the tree nearby.  3)  the location – the flowerbed is in the middle of the front yard and is viewed from all directions.  Taller plants will need to be in the middle with progressively lower plants toward the edges.  4) the plants already in place – the homeowner likes these, so we’ll get more of the same.  Some may need to be moved.  5)  deer – always a problem.  The whole list had to be cross-checked with lists of plants deer like and dislike.

      If the flowerbed was in my own yard, I would have spent several days or weeks just looking at the area to be planted, turning various options over in my mind before making any decisions.  Since this flowerbed is a couple miles away, I have to rely on photos I took last fall.

      Though I have photos and measurements, there is nothing like looking at the real thing.  As soon as snow melts, I’ll take my books and my lists to talk with the homeowner and make a tentative planting design plan.  The final decisions on what to plant will of course be determined by which of the listed plants can be found locally or through mail order.

      You may be ready to hang up your gardening tools for the year, but there is one more task to complete yet this year if you want a beautiful early spring garden.  Mid-October is bulb-planting time. 

      Flowers like tulips, daffodils, crocuses, muscari, hyacinths, alliums and scilla all grow from bulbs.  They can be planted in and around established flower beds or comprise their very own spring flowering bed. 

      As in any flower bed, the taller bulb plants go in the back and the shorter ones in the front.  In the back you might place alliums, daffodils and tulips, while hyacinths fill in the middle and crocuses and snowdrops line the front.  Most of the bulb plants, except allium, bloom early in spring and will be up before any of the other perennials in the flower bed. 

      After bloom, the foliage from bulb plants must be left in place to die down so the leaves can produce food to nourish the bulb for the next year, so plant them in back of another perennial or behind where you plan to plant some annual flowers.  The later growing plants will hide the dying foliage.

      Unless you have an extremely formal landscape, avoid planting the bulbs in straight rows.  They look more natural planted in drifts, or at least in groups of five to seven plants. 

      Crocuses bloom first, followed by daffodils and then tulips.  Each of these plants has early, middle and late blooming varieties.  With a little planning you can have an extended overlapping season of bloom.  Read the package, or the catalog description if you are mail-ordering, for bloom time.

      For a natural effect on your lawn, take a handful of bulbs and toss them gently on the grass.  Plant each bulb where it falls.  Although this works with any of the bulbs, crocuses and muscari are best for this technique as most people begin cutting their lawns long before the foliage of tulips and daffodils dies down.

      When shopping for bulbs, look for firm healthy looking ones.  Don’t buy them if they have soft spots or rot.  It’s okay if the papery outer layer falls off or peels away.  Even though the bulbs are dormant, they are living things, so handle them gently.

      Plant bulbs pointy-side up with the point about 2 ½ times as deep as the bulb is tall.  For example, a 2” tall bulb would be planted so its growing tip is 5” below ground.  There are tools at the garden center for individual bulb planting, but it is easier to dig a large hole and set five or more bulbs firmly around on the bottom.  Toss in a handful of bulb food or bonemeal.  Refill with soil, water well and wait for spring!

      Its name is rather off-putting for someone who wants to grow a nice plant, but dead nettle is a pretty solution for the oft-asked question, “What can I grow under my trees in the shade where grass won’t grow?” 

      Nettle implies something prickly or spiny, and dead, well dead implies dead.  Dead nettle is neither prickly nor dried-up dead.  Although the leaves have a superficial resemblance to other nettles, the “dead” part of its name refers to the fact that there are no spines or prickles.  Maybe they ran out of good names by the time they got to this one!  In any case, the Latin name is Lamium pronounced “LAY-mee-um.”

      Silvery or gray-leaved plants are useful in the garden.  Their neutral colors can balance and unify many different colors and provide a sense of cohesiveness.  There are very few silvery or gray-leaved plants that thrive in the shade, but there are some dead nettle cultivars whose silvery leaves provide a spark of brightness to shady areas.     ‘Herman’s Pride’ has green leaves with heavy streaks of silver and small yellow flowers.  Leaves of ‘White Nancy’ and ‘Beacon Silver’ are silver with a thin green border.  ‘Nancy’s flowers are white and ‘Silver’s are pink.  ‘Chequers’ has green leaves with a wide silver stripe down the center and purplish pink flowers.  ‘Pink Pewter’ has pink flowers as does ‘Aureum’ whose leaves are variegated with yellow instead of silver.

      Dead nettle thrives in spots where nothing else will grow.  It competes well with tree and shrubs roots so it is good for those dry shady spots.  It also does well along the north side of buildings, even in poor post-construction soil.  Dead nettle is a ground cover that grows 8 – 18” tall and spreads slowly but indefinitely.  Most dead nettles, except for ‘Herman’s Pride’ are on the shorter end of that range.

      Propagation is easily done by division in spring or fall.  No need to be careful; these are tough plants.  Just dig up a piece with some roots attached and move it to where you want it.  Stick it in the ground, give it a good watering and watch it grow. 

      Dead nettles are in the mint family so they can become invasive in moist, fertile soil.  They pull out easily, however, if they happen to grow where you don’t want them. 

      Dead nettle dies to the ground each winter and comes back again in spring.  The leaves of the young plants are edible and can be used in salads or stir-fries.

      It’s hard to have missed the news articles over the past several years on the many health benefits of flaxseed oil.  The omega-3 fatty acids in flaxseed oil help lower cholesterol and blood pressure.  Other parts of the plant are also useful – the fibers are used to make linen cloth, high quality paper and rope.  The seed produces linseed oil which is used as a drying agent in paint and varnish and in making linoleum floors. 

      Flax is also a wonderful plant for the perennial flower garden.  The inch-wide five-petaled flowers are sky blue streaked with darker blue lines and float above stiff, wiry two-foot tall stems with needle-like leaves.  The flowers bloom from May to September and even into October or November if the fall is mild.  Each flower lasts only one day, but there are so many stems that there is never a day without flowers. 

      Flax is a tough, long-lived plant.  It grows in pretty much any well-drained soil in full sun or light shade.  The plants don’t require division and need watering only in extreme drought.  Once established, flax needs very little care other than cutting it down in fall, which is easily done with a hedge clippers.

      You could transplant a clump of flax from a friend in early spring, but it is just as easy to grow from seed.  Don’t waste your money buying a half teaspoon or so of seed in a packet and paying a couple dollars for it.  Instead, buy flax seed in bulk at the grocery store for about $1.59 for a whole pound.  Yes, this is the same flax seed you buy for using in baking or sprinkling on your yogurt. 

      In spring, broadcast the seed on the soil and cover it with about a quarter inch of fine soil.  Keep moist until it germinates.  You should have flowers in about 100 days.  Seed can also be planted in fall and left over winter to germinate the following spring.

      The flowers produce many seeds and the plant self seeds freely.  Any plants growing where you don’t want them are easy to pull up when they are small.

      Flax is prettier in a large patch rather than as individual plants.  Flax interplanted with red or pink poppies would be gorgeous.  Another lovely combination is flax with alliums, lupines and wild geraniums.

      Plant flax and beginning just before the peonies and roses bloom in June, you’ll have your own little piece of blooming sky.