Native across the Eastern U.S. from Nebraska to Texas, east to the Mid-Atlantic up to New York, Baptisia alba is a striking, very adaptable addition to any garden. The purple stems give rise to erect clusters of white or cream pea-like flowers, (after all, it's in the pea family, the Fabaceae) towering over velvety, grey blue, trifoliate leaves. After flowering, the clusters of black seed pods provide fall and winter interest after the leaves drop. Wild white indigo is great in meadows, grassland plantings, borders, or more traditional gardens where it will remain well-behaved.
A tough one, once established, wild white indigo sends down a tap root, so it will be happiest to stay where it's planted. Very tolerant of most soils, except alkaline ones (the native range reflects the preference for acidic soils), it is drought tolerant, but may need supplemental irrigation until established. Pest resistant, including Bambi, you don't need to worry about it being munched. It will tolerate some filtered light, but is at its best in full sun.
Space plants 3' on center.
As a majestic plant, in bloom and foliage, give it some space. It spreads to 3' wide, so planting 3' on center seems sensible, whether in mass plantings (highly recommended) or as a specimen, don't hem it in.
In a prairie-style, or naturalized planting, combine with Sorghastrum nutans (Indiangrass), Rudbeckia triloba (browneyed Susan), Eryngium yuccifolium (rattlesnake master), Solidago speciosa (showy goldenrod). In a more traditional garden, combine with Andropogon ternarius (splitbeard bluestem), Echinacea purpurea (eastern purple coneflower), Pycnanthemum tenuifolium (narrowleaf mountainmint), Rudbeckia fulgida var. fulgida (orange coneflower), Symphyotrichum laeve (smooth blue aster), or other asters adapted to full sun and dry soil.
I'm amazed at how many plants are commonly called indigo of some stripe or another. Most are in the Fabaceae, pea family, and when European botanists tromped around the New World, they were all, "Look, Indigo!" at any upright flowering plant with trifoliate leaves. They thought they'd found the mother dye, from their experience with true indigo (Indigofera tinctoria, another plant in the Fabaceae family). Their assumption was incorrect: baptisias make poor quality dye.The specific epithet alba means white, because, well, look at the flowers.
$25 off orders of $500 or more
$50 off orders of $750 or more
$100 off orders of $1,000 or more
$300 off orders of $2,000 or more
15% off orders of $3,000 or more
Would you like your plants shipped later? You may choose to do so in the shopping cart.
Note: Early spring shipments might include plants that have not yet broken dormancy, or have not been vernalized and will be frost-tender. Please use your best judgment when selecting your preferred ship week.
Did you know? When plants are available from multiple growers, we list growers closest to your location first.
Why choose plants from the nearest grower? Choosing a the grower closest to you makes it more likely the plants are consistent with your ecoregion and better adapted to your location. In addition, shipping plants shorter distances typically uses fewer resources, something we can all get behind!
Recorded County Distribution: USDA data.
AR, IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, MI, MN, MO, MS, NE, NY, OH, OK, TN, WI, LA, TX |
Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain | FACU |
Eastern Mountains and Piedmont | FACU |
Great Plains | FACU |
Midwest | FACU |
Northcentral and Northeast | FACU |
MAP OF WETLAND DELINEATION REGIONS
Code |
Status |
Designation |
Comment |
OBL |
Obligate Wetland |
Hydrophyte |
Almost always occur in wetlands |
FACW |
Facultative Wetland |
Hydrophyte |
Usually occur in wetlands, but may occur in non-wetlands |
FAC |
Facultative |
Hydrophyte |
Occur in wetlands and non-wetlands |
FACU |
Facultative Upland |
Nonhydrophyte |
Usually occur in non-wetlands, but may occur in wetlands |
UPL |
Obligate Upland |
Nonhydrophyte |
Almost never occur in wetlands |
Kingdom | Plantae | Plants |
Subkingdom | Tracheobionta | Vascular plants |
Superdivision | Spermatophyta | Seed plants |
Division | Magnoliophyta | Flowering plants |
Class | Magnoliopsida | Dicotyledons |
Subclass | Rosidae | |
Order | Fabales | |
Family | Fabaceae | Pea family |
Genus | Baptisia | wild indigo |
Species | Baptisia alba | white wild indigo |
wild white indigo, white false indigo, false indigo
Baptisia lactea
Baptisia leucantha
Sizes info
Shipping is free on all plants orders!
Your plants will ship using each grower’s preferred method: FedEx Ground, UPS Ground, or Spee-Dee Ground (in select midwestern states). Our growers ship orders Monday through Wednesday. The farther your plants need to travel, the earlier in the week they will ship. The goal is to have all plants delivered by the end of the week.
Shipping plugs:
Plugs are shipped in full flats, sometimes also referred to as trays. Multiple flats can be shipped in a single box. The flats are wrapped in netting or craft paper to secure the plants, and spacers are used between flats to keep the plants from being crushed.
When you unpack your plugs, the plants will have been somewhat flattened by the netting or craft paper. They will straighten out within a couple of days. You may also gently “fluff” them a bit to speed up the process. In some cases, your plants might have been cut back before packing, if the grower deemed them to have become too tall for safe packaging. Don’t worry, though, these guys know what they’re doing and would not compromise the health of the plants. They’ll fill back in in no time.
After receiving your plants’ journey in a dark box, it will be important to acclimate them to sunlight again. Over a couple of days, you should gradually move them into their preferred light exposure, and water them as per their requirement.
Although we always recommend putting your plants in the ground as soon as possible, they can stay healthy in the flats for a considerable amount of time. The key is to respect their growing requirements: if the species requires full sun, do not store them in the shade. If it is best adapted to dry soil, do not over-water.
Planting plugs:
We consider plugs ready to ship when the plants’ roots have filled the entire liner cell and the plants can easily be pulled out. In some cases you will have to go about it gently, wiggling the plant by the crown, and possibly squeezing the bottom of the liner to compress the growing medium and release the roots. Other times, the plants will appear to be root bound. They are not in the traditional sense. The plants are healthy but they have used up all the growing medium available to them. Plugs are at an aggressive stage of growth. As soon as planted the roots will immediately expand into your native soil. They establish faster than plants in larger containers, because they don’t have the luxury of a lot of growing media that can inhibit the roots from venturing outside of their comfort zone.
We are not going to address area preparation because the process can be complex and is always site-specific. However, as a rule, we recommend disturbing the soil as little as possible, and we do not recommend amending the soil. If you chose the right plant for the right conditions they will thrive. Any disturbance and amendments will only encourage weeds to emerge that never had a chance to do so before.
Installing plugs cannot be easier: dig a hole large enough for the roots to fit snugly inside, then water them in to eliminate air gaps. We recommend using a soil knife, sometimes referred to as hori hori, or a drill-adapted auger if it’s a large installation. If you use an auger, you will need a powerful drill. Depending on the size of the project and the type of soil, the process can be beyond what an average drill will bear. Mulching is recommended after installation to help keep weeds down while the plants establish. Be sure to keep it away from the crown of the plants. For large projects, you may want to mulch the area before planting, rather than tiptoeing through it after the fact. As a side note: if you are installing plugs in the fall, you might want to plant them so that the crown is about ¾” lower than the surrounding soil. The winter’s freeze/thaw cycles can push plugs out if the roots did not have enough time to establish and anchor them in.