Agastache, Anise-Hyssop, Hummingbird Mint 'Blue Boa'

My favorite agastache. I have trouble over wintering nearly all agastache in zone 5b. Blue Boa overwinters reliably. We have have sandy a...Read Morecidic soil. Great pollinator plant. Shape and color compliments all those yellow daisy types flowers of Mid to late summer.

The blue-violet flower color is much deeper/more vivid than that of any other blue agastache I know. The spikes are larger than most, and...Read More stand out in the landscape. They make an excellent cut flower, and attract butterflies and hummingbirds in the garden. An excellent nectar source. This cultivar is sterile and does not self-sow.

Exceptionally long-blooming, from late June into the fall. With most of the violet agastaches, you get fewer flowers (corollas) on the spike as time passes, but here it's mid-September and the color still reads well in the landscape when the others (Blue Fortune, Purple Haze, Golden Jubilee) have all faded out.

The leaves give off a delicious fragrance when rubbed, like mint, licorice, and tutti-frutti bubblegum.

This is our first year with this cultivar, so I can't offer any observations about its winter hardiness. Some sources claim it is hardy to USDA Z5. Agastaches require excellent drainage to make it through the winter here, and prefer lean sandy mineral soils without compost or other enrichments. Hardiness is said to be better if plants are not cut back till spring.

If it overwinters here, this will be my favorite blue agastache, by far.

May be divided in early spring, and stem cuttings can be rooted.

Update July 3, 2016: All our plants overwintered well here in Boston Z6a. (The winter was slightly milder than average.) Some have reached over 6' tall in their second season. most are about 5'. I'm very happy with this plant.