Milkweed & Fireflies - ONCE UPON A CONEFLOWER

Hummingbird Mint Isn’t Just for the Birds

Agastache Ava’s hummingbird mint with phlox. A lovely tall agastache.

Here’s a hard-working, easy-care perennial too few gardeners utilize. Fortunately the nurseries are pushing hard to get it better known, and breeders are bringing out new hybrids in more colors every year.

Hummingbird mint is also known as anise hyssop. It’s often referred to at nurseries by its latin name agastache. (I will call it agastache.) This intriguing plant is deer- and rabbit-proof, blooms June to fall, resists most diseases and provides sustenance for pollinators. A member of the mint family, it does well in most any sunny garden, yet never spreads, reseeds, or gets out of hand.

What’s not to love?

A Woodland Beauty to Enchant the Senses

Actaea racemosa Pink Spike looks and smells divine

If you’re looking for something a little different for a shady border or to keep your azaleas company, have you considered black cohosh, also known as bugbane, baneberry, black snakeroot, or my favorite, fairy candles? For consistency I’ll call it cohosh here.

Perhaps you recognize the name ‘black cohosh’ from traditional folk medicine. One of 18 species worldwide, our native North American cohosh was once used to treat everything from snake bite to lung ailments to chirldbirth and menopause. It is still available today as an herbal supplement.

No matter what you call it, all varieties make good garden plants, especially the darker-leaved cultivars. The variety I grow, Pink Spike, is terrific. There are several others just as nice. If you’ve got a bit of moist loam in dappled or part shade, you might like to try growing this unusual beauty with its fascinating history.

Milkweeds for Monarchs

Milkweeds (Asclepsias) are native to North America, with more than a hundred species found in the US and Canada. The irritating, sticky white sap for which milkweed is named just happens to be vital to the monarch butterfly’s lifecycle. By ingesting it, they use toxins found in the sap to repel predators, creating a natural defense system.

As the sole host plant for monarchs, milkweeds provide the growing larvae with food as well as sap. Adults also feed on milkweed nectar. Without these critical plants, monarchs would have nowhere to lay their eggs, and their species would soon cease to exist.