What are we doing here at the nursery, on this very welcome snow day? Transplanting! Growing Castilleja sp. (Indian Paintbrush) is one of my favorite activities. This year we have five species in the catalog, and another that might be added soon. I checked on one of the flats in the greenhouse this morning, Castilleja chromosa. It’s time to transplant it.
People think that growing Indian paintbrush is hard to do, and in some ways that’s true. It germinates readily after a cold treatment, but the real trick is in transplanting. Because they are semi-parasitic, their roots seem to want to grow and tangle with their siblings. You can’t wait too long to transplant or you’ll lose them. You can’t transplant too early, either, they seem to need four to six true leaves to have the strength to survive handling.
Although they can grow for a while without a host species nearby, they prefer to be grown with blue grama grass or some of the native artemisias. This year I’m growing lots of blue grama in plug trays. When I transplant them, I’ll put one or two paintbrush with each plug of blue grama.
If you want to read more about the paintbrush we’ll have this year, check out the perennial catalog section: http://www.pfplants.com/?page_id=32
