Pink Truffles brings clear, soft pink flowers with pale yellow keels to the late spring garden, a lovely companion for peonies, bleeding hearts and other spring bloomers.
It grows upright to four to four and a half feet tall and fits into borders, meadows or specimen spots. Like other false indigos, it is easy to grow, drought tolerant once established, very long lived and deer resistant.
What it looks like
Upright spikes 8 to 12 inches of pea-shaped flowers in clear soft pink with pale yellow keels, held above the foliage on sturdy stems. Leaves are three-parted with oval blue-green leaflets. The plant is an upright, shrub-like clump 48 to 54 inches tall and 36 to 48 inches wide. At peak bloom soft pink spikes rise above the blue-green foliage.
Growing it with lavender
Pink Truffles likes the same sunny, lean, well-drained soil as lavender, and its soft pink spikes bloom just before lavender, then its blue-green foliage frames the lavender bed through summer.
Care
Plant in full sun to part shade in lean to average, well-drained soil; the deep taproot makes it drought tolerant once established. Hardy in USDA zones 4-9. Choose a permanent spot, since established plants do not like to be moved; expect a couple of seasons to settle in, and cut back in late fall or leave the seed pods for winter interest.
At a glance
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Botanical name: Baptisia
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Flower color: Soft pink with pale yellow keels
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Foliage: Blue-green
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Growth habit: Upright, shrub-like clump
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Mature size: 4 ft–54 in tall × 36 in–4 ft wide
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USDA hardiness zones: 4–9
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Light: full sun, part sun to part shade
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Bloom start: Late-May
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Peak bloom: Early-June
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Bloom pattern: Single Flush
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Deer resistance: Resistant
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Pollinator value: Great
Sizes and shipping
Dormant bare-root plant, sold in boxes of 25 per variety (order in multiples of 25). Bare-root plants ship or are picked up March 1–May 31 only. They are soil-free, so they may ship to every state in that window. Dormant plants often show little or no top growth on arrival; plant or heel them in promptly.