Monarda Species, Eastern Bee Balm, Bradbury's Beebalm, Horsemint, Wild Bergamot

It's now blooming in my Zone 7b sun to part shade garden. Lovely lavender blooms!

This plant has a lot going for it:

1) I planted it in a dry area with competing maple roots, but it has shown no sign of...Read More powdery mildew.

2) It's remained in a tight clump for two full seasons and shows no signs of wandering like most beebalms.

3) The foliage is nicely tinged with bronze, especially early in the season.

4) It's fairly short and needs no support.

Its one disadvantage, in my view, is the insipid pallid washy pinky-lavenderish flower color.

I hope some adventurous backyard hybridizer puts this species to use.

This Native American bee balm blooms earlier than most, is relatively low growing, and can be grown in sun or shade. One of its greatest ...Read Moreattributes is that it is generally resistant to mildew.

Monarda bradburiana does not get more than 2' and it blooms in early June. Here the foliage gets edged with burgundy hughes, I added a pi...Read Morecture to show this. It's actually very attractive to me even when not flowering, while all the other Monarda I grow tend to get very unattractive foliage after blooming. I also noticed a couple flowers that had double heads, almost like a double fountain effect, which I thought was nice. These are easy to grow from seed and if germinated in spring they will bloom the following spring.