Corydalis flexuosa 'China Blue'

I've got a love/hate relationship with this plant. The lovely dissected foliage is quite attractive, the flowers are a blue that gardeners would kill for and the fragrance, oh the fragrance. But I can't seem to keep it alive in the garden. Everyone that I talk to has the same problem, yet they keep buying it year after year by the thousands. I know that it needs moist shade and can tolerate dry during its Summer dormancy, but.... think that most gardeners would do well to grow it as an annual or tender perennial that you bring a small piece of inside for the Winter. It does well in a pot and will increase so rapidly that all of your friends will have a pot before you know it.

Numerous lovely, fragrant, gentian blue flowers top the delicate, dissected foliage in spring. The clumps will expand gradually. Plant with hellebores to great effect. This species will go dormant in midsummer if the soil dries out.

Vigorous selection with abundant sky-blue flowers (larger than those of 'Blue Panda') from spring until summer and often again in the fall. Described as "a bolder plant" than 'Blue Panda'.