![]() A good choice for sunny back borders, and great companion. The flowers of these bee balm perennials bloom early to midsummer. Bee Balm Mix is a combination of four complementary colors-white, pink, purple or red. Last, but not certainly least on our deer resistant perennial plant list are coneflowers. Bees and butterflies will visit the plants repeatedly over the course of their long bloom cycles. If you are looking for a midsummer star that you and the pollinators will love, bee balm is a great option. Bee Balm flowers attract hummingbirds and beneficial pollinators with aromatic leaves and frilly flower heads. Much like bee balm, astilbe produces blooms that are highly attractive to a wide range of pollinators. And it’s just as beloved by wildlife as it is by gardeners. However, adequate drainage and good air circulation around plants will go a long way toward preventing powdery mildew. A classic American native and cottage garden favorite, Bee balm is beloved by gardeners not only for its beautiful whorled blooms in red, pink, purple and white but for the evocative fragrance given off by foliage warmed by the sun or touched by the gardener. Some gardeners will plant a shorter plant in front of bee balm in their garden beds in order to hide the scraggly looking legs of bee balm. The one complaint about bee balm is a tendency to develop powdery mildew in late summer. didyma and the plants grow 2 to 5 feet tall.īoth types of bee balm handle a variety of soil conditions, from dry to moist. fistulosa look more fluffy than those on M. One of its common names is wild bergamont, and its leaves have a minty scent. Its pink flowers make it a popular garden choice. The other common species of bee balm is Monarda fistulosa, another Minnesota native, which grows wild in dry, open fields and marshes. The cultivar ‘Jacob Cline’, which is resistant to powdery mildew, is widely planted. It’s 2 to 4-inch flowers have many tubular shaped petals. This species can grow up to 6 feet tall, and because of the red flowers, it is very popular with hummingbirds. ![]() Monarda didymais a red-flowered variety that’s native to Minnesota. There are two dominant species of Monarda in the garden trade. These bee balm plants were about 5 feet tall and stunning.īee balm is plant that’s native to a good portion of the United States and Canada and is very attractive to bees, butterflies and other pollinators. Check out this beautiful stand of bee balm spotted on the Hennepin County Master Gardeners Tour a week ago. It seems that every year during garden tour season, I spot stands of bee balm that just stop me in my tracks. Common name of wild bergamot is in reference to the purported similarity of the aroma of plant flowers to the bergamot orange.We’ve written about bee balm ( Monarda) on this blog before because, frankly, it’s such a star in the summer garden. It also represents fertility often seen as a hallmark of good health and can promote restful sleep. The toothed, aromatic leaves (3-5” long) are still used today for teas and in salads. Because of its many uses as a medicinal plant, bee balm most commonly symbolizes good health along with protection from evil and illness. Common name of Oswego tea is in reference to a former use of plants leaves for tea by the Oswego Indians of New York State. Common name of bee balm is in reference to a former use of plant resins to soothe bee stings. Take out the seeds early in the spring and let a few weeks pass after the winter frost. Put them in a sand-filled plastic bag and store it in your fridge. Specific epithet from Latin means in pairs in reference to the plant stamens being in pairs. Here are the steps to grow bee balm from seeds. Genus name honors Nicholas Monardes (1493-1588), physician and botanist of Seville. Attractive to bees, hummingbirds and butterflies, particularly when massed. Plant foliage declines after bloom, particularly if infected with mildew. Long summer bloom extends for about 8 weeks from early/mid-summer to late summer. Each flowerhead is subtended by a whorl of showy, red-tinged, leafy bracts. Leaves emit a minty fragrance when bruised or crushed. ![]() Flowerheads bloom atop 2-4’ tall square stems clad with opposite, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, medium to deep green leaves (3-6” long) with serrate margins. It is a somewhat coarse, clump-forming, mint family member that features tubular, two-lipped, bright scarlet-red flowers crowded into dense, globular, terminal flowerheads (to 3-4” across) somewhat resembling unkempt mop-heads. Monarda didyma, known by a number of different common names including bee balm, Oswego tea and bergamot, is native to eastern North America where it typically occurs in bottomlands, thickets, moist woods and along streambanks from Maine to Minnesota south to Missouri and Georgia.
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