Baptisia pods

by Karen P.
(Simsbury, CT)

Each year my baptisia blooms and then large seed pods grow, dry, and eventually fall off. Will it work if I collect these pods now, allow them to dry out indoors, and then start them indoors next spring?

Doug wonders why you don't pick the pods from the plants just before they fall off to harvest the seeds then. Sometimes seeds will ripen off the plant and sometimes they don't. I've never tried an early harvest with this plant - simply picking the pods when they turn brown and start to wilt a bit.

So it's not the "drying" that's important - it's the getting enough energy into the seedpod from the mother plant to ripen and bring the seeds to maturity.

This is a variable with every plant - and they're all different in their needs.

The only way to know is to try it yourself - and let us know how it worked.


As for starting Baptisia in the house - yes, you can easily do this. I'd start the seeds in January when I had my nursery and they'd be nice plants in a 4-inch pot by May after frost had passed.