Is a black tupelo (black gum) a good tree to plant in Indiana?
Black Tupelo (Black Gum) can work here, with caveats. Native across Indiana and most at home on moist bottoms and pond edges, and increasingly planted as a native replacement for lost ash and for Callery pear, which is discouraged here though not actually banned in Indiana. The catch is that alkaline clay on many new central Indiana lots is the one condition it will not take, so establishment failures here are common.
What you'd be signing up to clean up
Female trees drop half-inch dark purple drupes in late September that stain concrete, get tracked indoors, and draw flocks of birds that then stain everything under the canopy; male trees fruit not at all. When a client is picking a planting spot, whether it sits over the drive matters more than anything else about the tree.
Where to keep it away from
It puts down a taproot early, which is why every source says spring planting only and why Morton flatly lists it as not transplanting well. In deep soil that taproot makes it unusually stable and keeps it clear of walks and sewer laterals; in shallow compacted clay over a perched water table the taproot never develops properly, which is much of why nursery-planted tupelos stall out around 15 ft.
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