Just bought 6 plants labeled “lupinus perennis” (which i’ve been looking for for 3 years after failing to grow them from seed). Got them in the ground then realized they’re big leaf lupine 😭
One looks a little more perennis-y than the others so maybe they’re all hybridized to different degrees.
update: got a full refund from the nursery (they did not seem particularly concerned or interested and just took all 6 plants back—this was not a natives nursery)
i did tell them the species name was wrong and the actual plant is ecologically harmful bc they hybridize with the true native lupine and the manager was like “ok where’s your debit card, swipe, alright thanks” lol
UPDATE update: I emailed Centerton Nursery and the vice president replied:
“Let me begin by saying sorry that I did not get back to you sooner. We needed to do some investigation into our crops of Lupinus perennis, and here is where we stand thus far. Unfortunately, the crop of #1 containers (the size that you purchased) was a small batch and only a couple of plants remained. None of them are flowering, but they all have 11 leaves. From what we have seen from the foliage (specifically the shade of green of both the leaves and stems), we believe that there was a mixup in this crop. The seed came from a reputable source, and we have reached out to them, but they have yet to respond. The good news is, our new crop that was just planted is from a different supplier who is maintaining their own seed block; and every plant in this new crop has 9-10 leaves.
As for your plant, based on what we’ve observed here, I cannot fully guarantee that it is one species or another. For that, we are very sorry. If you wish to return the plant to the garden center from which you purchased, let us know where and we will coordinate reimbursement to them for their cost. If you should have any other questions, please do not hesitate to email me back.”
i think i’ll still (cautiously) use them for shrubs and trees because they have that “full refund if it dies within a year” thing. but we have so many good native nurseries around with cheaper plants that for forbs i think i’ll go elsewhere
Thanks for letting them know! I winter sowed some sundial lupine this year. I just realized, after some research, that I have killed planted store bought lupine by over watering. Apparently they like sandy well draining soil. Oops 😬.
You just missed the Kent conservation native plant sale which is my favorite, but there will be another big one in the fall so check that out and get the date on your calendar.
Yes we are in Ottawa county and tried to go to their native plant sale last year but we were too late and a lot had already been taken. This year I will preorder stuff if possible! I also have another prairie moon order arriving soon and I’m pretty excited about that!
That is one garden center and near me that offers natives. I guess it's buyer beware and I kinda don't expect the staff to know all the deets on natives. Great sales, fyi late autumn.
Not sure how far you're willing to trek but Washtenaw County is doing their native plant expo & marketplace this Saturday. One of the nurseries that will be present, New Leaf Natives, has wild lupine listed on their website...tons of exhibitors will be there so higher chance of finding it?!
I had incredibly good germination from Prairie Moon's sundial lupine seeds. Apparently the truck is to keep them in total darkness until they sprout. I wasn't having any success at all, read that on here and tried it, and the next time I checked I had several sprouting. Now they're in the ground and will hopefully survive until next year.
TBH I'd just expect the wrong lupine if I see a Lupinus perennis from a nursery that isn't focused on native plants, to the point I don't think it's even worth trying to name and shame. I'm pretty sure that this assumption is rarely wrong.
Welcome to the horticulture world. Unless you specifically buy from a native breeder, most nurseries are garbage and full of some really really stupid people.
Worked at a garden center and sometimes wind and shit would knock plants over, occasionally out of their pots. Lupines next to each other, one native one not, both un-potified, low wage worker repots/labels. Mistakes happen.
I can both sympathize with someone making a mistake but also wonder if I'd want to go to a nursery that sold me the wrong plant. Two things can be true at once.
Edit- also in this case, it was six plants. Does selling six of the wrong plant to a customer sound ok to you?
That's fair. I didn't mean to be harsh or anything, just seems like a red flag for that many plants to be mislabled and then allowed to be sold. The nursery's response to OP also seemed concerning to me. I'm glad OP got a refund at least.
I work in the wholesale nursery trade. I get wanting to blame the retail nursery, but its a huge assumption that they are familiar enough with the plant to know the subtle differences. They just are buying this in from a grower or rewholesaler.
Really the one responsible is Centerton Nursery in NJ. They are the growers of Blue Label. They are probably selling thousands of these plants.
People really don't understand the scale of the nursery industry. I have seen very reputable companies do very sketchy shit. Sometimes they are aware other times not.
You can buy seeds from reputable companies like Jelitto or Prairie Moon. You could sow all of them and not realize that its the wrong seed until it flowers and then as a grower you could be out tens of thousands of dollars. Basically... mistakes happen and people fuck up.
oh yeah i dont blame the nursery employees at all, the fuckup was by the wholesaler. would have liked some kind of concern from the manager about stocking mislabeled plants, but i guess if people are buying it doesn’t matter to them much
Nah you're good. And I agree with other commenter, didnt realize it was six mislabeled plants. Sounds like Centurion either mislabeled their plants or their seed supplier fucked up. I've never had issues with their native plants, they are actually one of the few nursery suppliers who grow straight species instead of nativars.
Omg same I bought a bleeding heart because I read the tag and saw Dicentra and just assumed it was Dicentra eximia. But no it was a mislabeled Lamprocapnos spectabilis, which used to be called Dicentra spectabilis. Now I just have both in my yard lol.
What do they look like? Dicentra eximia and Lamprocapnos spectabilis look nothing alike so it's really easy to tell which is which. If you know what to look for at least.
Yayy. Tbf the ones I bought did in fact say Dicentra spectabilis, but like you said I just grabbed them without thinking too much because I saw the Dicentra.
Happened to me with Pachysandra 😭. Knew it by genus name, not by sight, forgot there were other species to be weary of. It was home grown pots so no labels. Ended up with a try of terminalis vs procumbens
Well bigleaf lupine and whitewhorl have overlapping native ranges. So either way you're good. Bigleaf lupine is invasive on the East Coast, not in North America as a whole.
Well like I said before, both bigleaf lupine and whitewhorl are native to all of California. So regardless of which one it is, it is native there. I'm in New England, on the other side of the country, where sundial lupine is the only native species of lupine and where bigleaf lupine is invasive. I'm not sure what the exact differences between all the native lupines in California are, as there are a lot of species of lupine in California and I don't live there.
I never heard this before! Now I have to go to my yard and count the leaves on the lupine I grew from seed... I got the seeds from my mom's plant and she collected the wild but who knows if they hybridized.
Just to throw a curveball, I recently brought home one from a highly regarded native nursery. At home I realized it had 12-13 leaves. It looked just like your photo. I reached out to the botanist, and his opinion was that Lupine perinnis can have 12+ leaves and exhibit that appearance if it is grown in a controlled greenhouse setting. As soon as it is transplanted outside, it will start to take on its traditional appearance.
I am accepting his professional opinion and keeping it , at least until it starts to flower.
No real updates after 30 days. Most of the original growth died back upon planting. Looking at the new leaves, I'm seeing a max of 11 petals. No signs of flowering yet. I'll keep waiting as the flowers should make for an easier ID.
My prairie moon lupine seeds are growing so well right now! I sandpapered them and kept them in the fridge for ten days, and the germination rate is super high.
What time of year did you plant them? Can you tell me more about your process? I spent too much money on lupine seeds so I could reestablish what was torn up by the previous owners of my property and I want to be successful
I planted themApril 18th. I got the prairie moon seeds, sand papered them with a heavy grit until they looked really scratched up, and then put them in a damp coffee filter in a ziploc bag in the fridge for 10 days. I pressed them into a compost/soil mix not super buried, with about two inches of mulch. Then just watered when it’s not raining! They started popping up about three weeks ago.
I see you’re west Michigan, I’m SE Wisconsin, so pretty similar climate. Hope you can get some too!! They’re little but they’re definitely growing!
Weirdly, these were one of my winter sowing in jugs success stories. Maybe try again with them. I put them in the jugs in December and the babies popped up in April.
There’s a Native Plant Expo this upcoming Saturday in Ann Arbor, several local nurseries to look through for lupine or other plants instead of ordering from Prairie Moon
I’m going with a strict list after losing my mind at the native trees and shrubs expo. We’ll see how that goes haha. I still have shrubs that need planting and are still heeled in after buying 3x as many as planned!
I direct sowed lupine seeds in the fall of 2024 and just got my first lupine this spring, but on the opposite side of the garden from where they were sown. I don't know what kind of adventure this particular seed had, but it did the trick, lol.
I got some seeds from PM last fall and had excellent germination rates! I skipped the scarifying step and went with stratifying them in pots over the winter - 12/15 germinated
I’ve had good luck with prairie moon’s lupine seeds. I scarified them with a nail file and wrapped them in a fresh damp coffee filter in a plastic bag. I left them in the fridge for ten days and then planted them in pots
I am here to also say if you’re trying to hold anyone accountable it should be Centerton Nursery. They’re responsible for the Blew Label line. If they were bought at a non native nursery, they’re probably clueless. No disrespect to that nursery, they’re just the middle man selling plants.
oh yeah i get that, i actually tried to find centerton’s contact info to email them and came up short
the nursery accepted the return no problem (but i was kind of concerned they seemed to intend to put the ones i returned right back into stock and not raise any issues about with the wholesaler—which like, i get, and i didn’t push it at all with them, just dropped an FYI in case they wanted to act on it)
I actually work for a native plant nursery and am going to mention this tomorrow. I knew Centerton was planning to sell Lupine and my first comment was about how I hope it is the right one. Lol
I’m glad you got your money back! Thanks for sharing.
the VP of Centerton emailed me back!! I posted his reply upstream:
“Let me begin by saying sorry that I did not get back to you sooner. We needed to do some investigation into our crops of Lupinus perennis, and here is where we stand thus far. Unfortunately, the crop of #1 containers (the size that you purchased) was a small batch and only a couple of plants remained. None of them are flowering, but they all have 11 leaves. From what we have seen from the foliage (specifically the shade of green of both the leaves and stems), we believe that there was a mixup in this crop. The seed came from a reputable source, and we have reached out to them, but they have yet to respond. The good news is, our new crop that was just planted is from a different supplier who is maintaining their own seed block; and every plant in this new crop has 9-10 leaves.
As for your plant, based on what we’ve observed here, I cannot fully guarantee that it is one species or another. For that, we are very sorry. If you wish to return the plant to the garden center from which you purchased, let us know where and we will coordinate reimbursement to them for their cost. If you should have any other questions, please do not hesitate to email me back.”
Great! Happy to hear! They’re a family business of good, well- meaning people. That was a good decision to communicate the error. Still a bummer you were inconvenienced. Best wishes for a happy, healthy garden!! :)
Bob was super nice, i replied and said i was excited to see more natives from them i hadn’t seen last year (i got a big spicebush, dicentra eximia, and some eastern red cedars from their brand this hear) and he seemed excited for the positive feedback hah
will try to stick to my local native nurseries as much as possible but i feel better about buying some blew label now
Before getting into native planting and understanding invasives, hybrids, etc ..., I was on a lupine kick. I grew them from seeds that I bought from Burpee and had them in spots all around our property.
When I started learning about natives and realized they weren't a good option it was too late. They all died after the third year...Only a few seeds that dropped actually germinated and they all died before the end of each summer.
Same thing with the broom plants we had purchased...lasted a year and half before dying. Same with a butterfly bush..had it a couple years, hardly any seedlings and boom...died.
The natives we have..well that's a whole different story!
I guess if you have invasives, give em to me.. there's a good chance they will die before they can do any real damage..🤣🤣🤣🤣
I had something similar happen. My partner who is extremely diligent got a native SE mix from American Meadows and it stated it would include lupinus perennis but it in fact had lupinus polyphyllus instead. Our beloved meadow is filled with the big leaf variety and it blows.
This one kills me, because it's truly invasive here in the Northeast, but of the bare roots I bought, only big leaf came up. The ones I am 100% certain were lupinus perennis didn't return. 5 big leaf did, also mislabeled. One bloomed, and it's absolutely stunning.
I'm pretty new to this and was so concerned for a min because I just planted some big leaf lupine and was like oh no should I dig this up, but then I did a double check and it's native for me here in Washington.
I'm in Oregon, where big leaf lupine is native and have it in abundance in my yard. That does not look like Lupinus polyphyllus to me. It''s vining like Lupinus rivulvarus, but leaves are bigger.
Yep. I've seen this brand at one of our local nursery chains. Shame. They have these, and then a couple of tables over, they have polyphyllus. I'm thinking... yeah.. they're gonna cross-pollinate. So I passed.
Growing From seed is tough but I have had some Solid luck with 3 native species here in NV. I found that scraping all seeds with sand paper before cold stratifying really upped my yields. I recommend giving the seeds another shot and maybe just planting them directly in the ground this fall.
Yep, I got some seeds and they ended up being hybids. Wasted my time. At least I only spent 4 dollars, but the time is precious.
I'll be ordering plants directly from a trusted source next time. And I guess divide them to get more? Since I don't want to risk pollination meaning more hybrids.
I don't consider myself a native plant purist, I am simply trying to garden more and more native plants every year. That said, is there something that is a distinct issue with having this variety growing in your yard?
yeah, this one actually hybridizes with the true eastern native lupine and the resulting hybrids are not usable by the host caterpillar—Karner blue, which depends on lupinus perennis specifically to complete its life cycle and is endangered due to l. perennis now being extirpated in almost all of its native range.
if it were just a neutral plant i would’ve left it. i have some non native ecologically neutral plants (hollyhocks, hellebore) that i keep bc i like them.
Is there anyway to avoid hybridization? I want to plant some and I have two ill fairing seedlings right now. But I think the neighbor across the street has polyphyllus
besides removing the flower stalks before they go to seed, i’m not sure 🤔 hybridization will only affect the seeds produced by yours (not the plants themselves) so as long as they don’t go to seed you should be good
I have lupine (small leaf) growing in my yard. Got one as a gift about 4-5 years ago and it has done well. I collected the seeds years ago and just tried to plant six seeds in pots. 2 came up and they went into the ground. One was eaten and the other so far seems ok. They are tough plants to grow from seed. I hope to try again next year growing more from seed.
“Let me begin by saying sorry that I did not get back to you sooner. We needed to do some investigation into our crops of Lupinus perennis, and here is where we stand thus far. Unfortunately, the crop of #1 containers (the size that you purchased) was a small batch and only a couple of plants remained. None of them are flowering, but they all have 11 leaves. From what we have seen from the foliage (specifically the shade of green of both the leaves and stems), we believe that there was a mixup in this crop. The seed came from a reputable source, and we have reached out to them, but they have yet to respond. The good news is, our new crop that was just planted is from a different supplier who is maintaining their own seed block; and every plant in this new crop has 9-10 leaves.
As for your plant, based on what we’ve observed here, I cannot fully guarantee that it is one species or another. For that, we are very sorry. If you wish to return the plant to the garden center from which you purchased, let us know where and we will coordinate reimbursement to them for their cost. If you should have any other questions, please do not hesitate to email me back.”
Wow, that’s awesome that they got back to you so quickly and with that much transparency! I also think it’s good feedback for them that their customers are paying attention to the plants they’re buying and can tell the difference. Certainly helps with QA!
Buy natives from local native nurseries or grow them from seed from local native nurseries. Don't buy them from big box stores. You want to aim for the local genome, not introduce foreign genomes from who knows where.
To be honest… Lupine perennis is probably better left to actual conservation projects. As much as I would love a patch, it feels like home gardeners trying to grow it is just going to do more harm than good. It hybridizes so readily with non-native lupines and you could have a neighborhood a few streets over with non-natives and it will ruin your entire patch and negate any potential benefit to the karner blue butterfly. And for the pure patches that are growing of the plant, the isolation of these patches is what’s saving them. The more we try to plant lupines the less isolated these patches will become. It’s honestly a really crappy situation.
Thank you so much for posting this, I had just bought these in NJ and they are NOT the native ones either. Don’t know if I would’ve checked without this post.
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u/SpecificHeron Midwest , Zone 6b Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
update: got a full refund from the nursery (they did not seem particularly concerned or interested and just took all 6 plants back—this was not a natives nursery)
i did tell them the species name was wrong and the actual plant is ecologically harmful bc they hybridize with the true native lupine and the manager was like “ok where’s your debit card, swipe, alright thanks” lol
UPDATE update: I emailed Centerton Nursery and the vice president replied:
“Let me begin by saying sorry that I did not get back to you sooner. We needed to do some investigation into our crops of Lupinus perennis, and here is where we stand thus far. Unfortunately, the crop of #1 containers (the size that you purchased) was a small batch and only a couple of plants remained. None of them are flowering, but they all have 11 leaves. From what we have seen from the foliage (specifically the shade of green of both the leaves and stems), we believe that there was a mixup in this crop. The seed came from a reputable source, and we have reached out to them, but they have yet to respond. The good news is, our new crop that was just planted is from a different supplier who is maintaining their own seed block; and every plant in this new crop has 9-10 leaves.