I discovered the virtues of Wild Blue Indigo or False Indigo by accident. I bought a plant one weekend up in Rhode Island and stuck it into the front border of our shared summer house asking it to perform what every plant in that border had to do - survive on care and watering only once a week when we were there. It did quite magnificently so it was an easy shoo in for the Mamaroneck garden years later.
Probably with conditions that suited it a little better, lots of afternoon light but not as exposed as it was in Westerly, its been one of the star performers, returning every year for a spectacular show. It's become a source of inspiration- its color driving the selection of all other blue flowers in the flower beds - I've been restricting them to only blues with a lavender or indigo cast. I've made graphic art, photographed flowers in this color scheme, and made a flipbook called Mood Indigo that has had close to 5000 views.
The word search for this plant is probably the most frequent draw to this blog - when I occasionally look at the analytics- it's almost always in the top five. I've had success with not just it's name - one day this image caught the attention of the owner of Pure Life Soap who was looking for an image to put on their product Wild Indigo Shampoo and Conditioner. And there it landed. Last weekend, the deep indigo buds in the picture above kicked off a new season , a few days later, my parcel of goodies arrived. I bartered the use of the image for a supply of quite delightful organic, botanical shampoos, creams, conditioners, lotions and soaps - they're listed here.
What next for the fair Indigo, who knows, its been a pretty cool ride so far.
+ GreenKraft:Design for a living World
