Amorpha canescens / Lead Plant / False Indigo - Jupiter's Beard

Amorpha canescens / Lead Plant / False Indigo / Jupiter's Beard

Lead Plant is a summer classic of the Midwestern prairie and native throughout central US and Canada. Purple spikey blooms, with gold stamens, come out early summer and float above elegant silvery green leaves. As with most natives, it takes several years to mature, but it's worth the wait! 

It grows on a variety of soils but does particularly well in dry, sandy conditions. An excellent nitrogen fixer, part of the vegetable (pea) family, Lead Plant has a very deep tap root, up to 4+ meters, that incorporates nitrogen from the air into the soil. It may die back after a very harsh winter or prairie fire, but recovers because of those deep roots.

Amorpha canescens attracts bees, butterflies, moths, beetles and other beneficial insects. Lead Plant is one of the larval hosts of the Southern Dogface butterfly, Dog Face Sulfur. Provide protection from aggressive deer and rabbits during early years.

In low fertility soils beneficial bacteria, inoculum for vegetables in the pea family or a general mycorrhizal inoculum, may be beneficial.

Indoors: Cold stratification, Quick Start or at least 10 days.

Scarrification or remove hulls. Plant .3 cm (1/8 inch) deep, keep moist and warm. Transplant into the garden when seedlings are at least 5 cm. Spacing seedlings 30 cm apart. 

Outdoors: Plant seed 3 mm (1/8 inch) deep in a prepared seed bed in late fall.

H: 90 cm W: 60-90 cm Spacing: 30 cm

Sun/Part-Sun

Blooms: purple, July

North American native - Native to North America

Seed pack - 60+ seeds