I cut my Purple Smoke Baptisia back to about 15 inches immediately after blooming this year. It has regrown to almost its original height and is perfect looking, with no flopping at all. Mine has always had a tendancy to splay open and flop somewhat after blooming, so I have been cutting it back some each year, but I never gave it such a drastic haircut until this year. Worked fine. Nice, bushy, upright & about the prettiest cleanest foliage of anything this time of year. Took surprisingly little time to regenerate itself, but as I said before, did not get quite as tall as it was originally. The problem that I had in previous years was that with a minor haircut it got even taller with regrowth than it was originally, somewhat out of proportion with other plantings in the bed, & still splayed open more than I liked. My baptisia is planted in amended rich fertile clay soil in an area that is somewhat high in my yard & on the dryish side (for my wettish garden). In less rich soil it might not need such drastic cutback treatment, but it was this or dig it out. BTW, it looked a lot like asparagus spears sticking out of the ground after I gave it the hard cutback, kind of ugly & scary looking, but I'm very happy with it now. Now it is sort of the perfect late summer/early fall plant that also managed to look good in spring & early summer - a very long season!

here ya go ga. 7b-8 depends on what map you look at.. plants that are going in greenhouse are app. 5-6' tall which are possibly going to fruit, if they fruit i'll keep them in buckets like the Dwarf Orinoco (pic below)and keep my fingers crossed. love these buckets as they're short and big around, this will help keep it from being top heavy. notice all leaves have been cut off except growing leaf. these leaves will yellow and die off after plant has been pulled, take a bit but will start to grow again in gh.. Dwarf Orinoco i've already pulled pups and potted up in 3 gal containers. these pups are about 12-14" with corm formed, they'll go to gh. plants that have fruit haven't been touched, as the bunches will be cut down before first frost to ripen inside. the ones that are expected to fruit in gh, pups are being cut down even with soil line.. this should give you a great big corm on pup next year.. mainly to help it fruit and ripen quicker. my tall fruiters will be dug up and all leaves are cut except growing leaf then stored under house. i don't cover, water or bother during winter . i do keep them off ground, they're stacked on top of old tires and one heat vent from house heating .. example of what you can get in 2 years growing tall plant, carries 5 bunches app. 7-9 fruits per hand. Tall Orinoco ? pic below has one d.o. in back middle with fruit, bunches will be cut before frost, to house to ripen. two 5' pups in front will be seperated and put into big wash pans like above and placed in gh for winter. the smaller pups will be potted up and put in gh. gh will only be kept just above freezing and will dip below at times, for short periods. gh is kinda like a moist zone 9 winter without the frost.. d.o. carried fruit last year to ripen this spring..

That hot pink/vermillion colour is so odd. The one bloom I've smelt at a nursery reminded me of pears and so I had to have him. Benjamin is coming this year from DAR-USA and your photos and videos are so inspring. Thank you for sharing! Steven

Hi Caroline, I think I live quite near you. I look forward to reading your posts and experiences with David Austin roses since we are pretty much in the same zone. Like you, I hope I live long enough to see all my Austins grow and thrive since I am a latecomer with my addiction for them. I have a large rose garden that finally, just this year has begun to reward us for all our very hard work. I had a thriving crop of thistle that has taken us 12 years to overcome but we won the battle. We have very heavy clay soils and have been hauling trailer loads of horse manure compost in every few weeks to help. We see wonderful results. Maybe we can meet in person one day and share our love of roses.