Although they are perennials, lupines are in the class of short-lived perennials. They put all their energy into those magnificent flower stalks and wear themselves out in the effort. Lupines live in the range of two to five years.

If you want to keep lupines blooming in your garden, you have two choices. If you watch their spots in spring and nothing appears by late May, you can simply buy new plants. The ones for sale in local nurseries should be plants starting their second year and should bloom this summer.

If you do not want to keep reinvesting in new plants, you can keep your own lupines growing from seed. There will be progeny every year to grow up and replace their dead ancestors. Presumably you care how the flower garden looks throughout the summer, and lupine seed pods do not contribute to its beauty. By all means cut off the old flower stalks whenever they reach a point where you do not want to look at them.

But leave a little for the future. Choose a few inches of developing seedpods on one stalk on each plant. Pick a group which will not be in your face whenever you look in their direction. Cut off all the other flower stalks, as well as the top of the one you choose to save.

That is the only effort you will need to make. By the end of the summer you will find those seedpods, now brown and twisted and empty. They have ripened their Seeds and flung them around the area. Let nature be in control. The ripe seeds will winter on the ground, and some will sprout next spring. If you are not obsessive about cleaning up the garden this fall, enough lupine seeds will remain to start the next generation.

If new lupines come up in the wrong places, they are easy to move. Older plants whose taproots have developed usually die if dug. First year seedlings hardly notice their relocation. Approx. 45 Seeds/Pkg.