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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-067
Indigobush
Amorpha fruticosa
Indigobush is a nitrogen-fixing shrub that roots deeply enough to hold a stream bank, pond edge or the toe of a berm while it feeds the soil around it. Deep violet-purple flower spikes with orange anthers bloom from April to June, feeding bees and butterflies and hosting several skipper and dogface caterpillars. Its stems yield a blue dye and a natural insecticide, but its seed floats on floodwater and roots sucker readily, so it forms dense thickets fast and should be planted where that spread is wanted. Reported alkaloids make it unsafe to graze, so keep it out of reach of livestock.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 4–9
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Dry · Well-Drained · Moderate · Wet
Vertical layer
Shrub- Soil pH
- 5.5–8
- Plant type
- Perennial
- Mature height
- 4–12 ft
- Mature spread
- 6–15 ft
- Plant spacing
- 12–24 ft
- Root type
- Fibrous-deep
- Spread pattern
- Both
Keep exploring
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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