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!

I found it interesting enough to resurrect this thread that the 'Indigo' of commerce in the U.S. appears to have quite possibly come from Mottisfont itself. Assuming the truly indigo-colored 'Indigo' grows there, I think we probably have the right rose, at least. See this link for one piece of evidence of its importation. It seems that the coloration of the Mottisfont clone was also problematic in southern California from the beginning: "...just a notch or two closer to purple than the default OGR phlox-magenta" sums it up nicely. In another thread on Gardenweb, our old friend Pete Flowers suggested that David Austin may have introduced the Mottisfont clone through his nursery. See here for that link, in French.

The flowers of the lacecaps last just as long as the fuller mopheads do, but because the flowers themselves are different, the appearance after they fade is different as well. The large, sterile flowers (like the mops) on the outer edge will hold their form well and go through a variety of color changes as they age like George and creech mention. The tiny fertile flowers in the center of the inflorescense do not hold up as well and their tired appearance late in the season may be what you object to. Personally, I find the mature, aged flowers of the lacecaps rather appealing and well, lacy looking :-) I hestitate to cut them off until my spring clean-up as they look very attractive in winter with frost on them, etc. Right now, my climbing hydrangea and other lacecap hydrangeas are only starting to look tattered with their old flower heads still attached, but then we have had considerable rain lately and a fierce windstorm this past weekend and everything that has held up through winter is looking a bit worse for wear. Major clean up is on the horizon! My opinion may be biased by the fact that I prefer lacecaps over the mops, too :-)

SoCal23 This is the info on the climate in Albany, where Waussie lives: "Albany's long-term median annual rainfall is approximately 930 mm though there can be considerable variation in the total rainfall from year to year. Annual rainfall has ranged from 1395.2 mm in 1955 to 628.5 mm in 1972. On average, approximately 72 per cent of the annual rainfall occurs between May and October. Although cold fronts are responsible for much of the recorded rainfall total, a moist onshore flow can occur in any season and bring showers or drizzle. Thus Albany records rainfall on 178 days annually, on average, which equates to almost one day in every two. July is the wettest month, with a long-term average of over 140 mm, whilst rain occurs on two days out of every three during an average winter. The driest month is February with a mean of about 23 mm and in summer it rains on average about one day in every four. Like other parts of southwest WA, winter rainfall has decreased in Albany during the latter half of the twentieth century. Evidence suggests that both natural variability and the enhanced greenhouse effect have most likely contributed to this decrease. Temperature Average maximum temperatures peak in January and February in Albany, with monthly means of almost 23°C although temperatures above 35°C sometimes occur when hot, dry northerly winds arrive from the interior of WA. Overnight minima also peak in January and February at a mild 15°C, on average. Winter daily maximum temperatures average approximately 16°C, while the average minimum is approximately 8°C in July and August. Daily minimum temperatures below 5°C can be expected about once or twice a month in winter, but Albany daily temperature records between 1907 and 1965 show no occasion where the temperature fell to zero. At Albany Airport, temperatures at or below zero have been recorded on only two occasions between 1965 and 2002.