In a way, native plants are like football players.  If the footballer is good in high school, he goes to college.  He’s drafted into the NFL, trained, coached and turned into a hulking freight train with little resemblance to that cute high schooler.  The wild indigos have suffered a similar fate.  There are three common species of wild indigo in the Midwest.  They are beautiful flowers.  Consequently, breeders have hybridized them into a menagerie of colors from an odd dark brown to a range of yellows and blues.  How much these hybrids support the pollinators that have depended on the native species for thousands of years remains to be seen.  

The native wild indigos are legumes, like the milkvetch we talked about last month, and thus fix nitrogen, enriching the soil.  They have deep, extensive root systems which are very difficult to transplant but greatly enrich the prairie soils to which they are native.  So, in planting native indigos instead of “store bought” fancy hybrids, you are doing the soil a great favor.  The wild indigos emerge in the spring, looking like early asparagus shoots.  In spite of what some eager sellers might tell you these shoots are not “deer resistant” but are indeed tempting to our ungulate friends.  Once the mature foliage appears, the deer tend to shy away.  But as one wise conservationist told me, “if a deer gets hungry, he’ll eat darn near anything.”  As I said last month, an 80 lb. Labradane does wonders for deer control!

Photo credit: plants.ces.ncsu.edu

This brings us to one of the three most prolific species, White wild indigo (Baptisia alba).  Regular readers may remember we talked about Blue wild indigo in December of 2024.  White wild indigo is native to all the Midwestern prairies.  It is an elegant stately plant which projects a graceful spire of white flowers skyward.  Its stalks are usually from two to three feet tall although some varieties can reach four to six feet.  It will do well in most any well-drained soil with full sun.  It easily grows from seed. 

White wild indigo boasts a blue-green foliage which contrasts nicely with the early summer flowering of milky white blooms on tall stalks.  As the fall comes, pea pod fruits are initially green, turning to black as winter comes.  At some point during the winter the pod splits and the seeds are disgorged.

Photo credit: G D Bebeau, The Friends of the Wildflower Garden

Although usually quite low maintenance, B. alba is plagued by the Wild Indigo Weevil, or Baptisia Seed Pod Weevil, which is a type of beetle with an elongated snout that inserts its larval eggs into the pre-dispersed B. alba seeds.  Usually, the plant will shed infected pods, promoting survival.  If left to its own devices B. alba will usually soldier on.

Thus, White wild indigo is a lovely addition to your landscape, providing summer color and elegance along with winter interest.  The addition of B. alba to your plantings will enhance the beauty of your garden, the richness of your soil and the functionality of your ecosystem.