This is a rare and most demure Monarda. Ranked by NatureServe as a G2 imperiled plant, you would never know it by its behavior in the garden: it spreads quickly, leaping across the garden bed in the first year of planting. In the winter, the roots sit just at the surface of the soil, with an occasional rosette peering above the leaf litter. Then, in spring, as the temperatures rise, so do the stems! Up they go! Not sky-high, but thigh-high! Topped in summer by greenish yellow tubular blooms quickly found by bees and butterflies alike. The seedheads persist through fall as light grey punctuation marks, only to be erased by the wintery white of the first snow storm. While this species is native to Louisiana and Texas, these plants are divisions that have survived multiple winters here in the mid-Atlantic.
Conditions: Full sun to part shade; moist, well-drained soil
Size: 2’-3’ tall
Zone: 7 - 8
Wildlife Value: Flowers are valuable to nectar-loving pollinators, especially long-tongued bumblebees
Photo: Sonnia Hill