I had long admired the cobalt blue flowers of baptista, as well as their graceful, arching habit and handsome, grey-green leaves.
Then I planted three, and had planter's regret. While plant tags do warn you to give it room, it is difficult to imagine that this plant will truly spread, stand tall, and isn't really that showy, after all.
The flowers are pretty while in bloom, but they are tiny, aren't cut flowers, aren't fragrant, and aren't useful to wildlife or have a change of season with the leaves. All of the above traits are usually considered by me, but, blinded by some winter blues, in they went!
My mother had the same experience, and vowed to take hers out of her garden, as well. Over the long weekend, she stopped by to greet me, only to find me flushed, sweaty and annoyed.
"Good luck digging out the baptista," I said, not bothering with a greeting. When one gardener greets another in a garden, pleasantries are dispatched and the task at hand is evaluated.
In one hand I clutched a saw that folds into itself like a compact comb. It was an impulse buy at Job Lot, and is now a bit rusty, but it has been truly useful - especially when daunted by such a task as the one in front of me.
"You can't dig it out by the roots?" my mom asked. "No," I said, "I had to use this thing - it was like sawing off a molar of Kronos." She was dismayed.
But the empty cavities left me a place to pop in some white phlox to give the autumn blushes of my garden some punch, and I'm pleased I went through the aggravation.
Don't get me wrong, I still like baptista, but only if I had the right spot, a pathway that the plant could wend along - this is a plant that is a perfect perennial shrub.
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