About Painted Lady Improved
Sprays of bicolor red and pale pink flowers, tan and black speckled beans. Tolerates heat better than other runner beans. Heirloom variety from the early 1800s. 55–68 days to bloom, 110 days for dry beans.
Fun fact #1: The species name, coccineus, comes from the Greek word meaning scarlet, the color of most varieties’ flowers. Fun fact #2: Runner beans climb up their support in a clockwise direction, unlike pole beans that climb counter-clockwise.
About Runner Beans
If grown for the showy sprays of bright flowers, keep the beans picked to encourage flowers. Pods filled with large 1" beans that are delicious eaten as shell beans or dried. Flowers and very young bean pods are also edible. Vigorous twining stems that need strong support. From the mountains of Mexico and Central America, they produce more pods in cooler weather.
