The Best Bumblebee Plant in My Permaculture Garden

[@suzannecrookshanks8257]

Love it when you wear a flower in your hair 💜

[@joanfrellburg4901]

Thanks, one plant I'm hoping to add to the garden. It's a beauty !

[@tthappyrock368]

It's good to know about another plant that pollinators love!

[@robertcotrell9810]

I have a brilliant pink monarda. It was well-liked! I'm excited to see how it looks next year as it becomes more established.

[@joanneoverstreet72]

Thank you! 😊🌱💚🌻🐝🐓

[@Iris_van_Vulpen]

Monarda are lovely plants. This year in our garden Eupatorium cannabinum and Pastinaca sativa are our great bee flowers. Both attract a wide variety of insects including different micro bees and butterflies.

[@juliam3980]

This has always been my favorite monarda - I love the pale purple color. I'm glad to know where I can get some!

[@katherinegaeta2590]

I added some Wild Monarda to our permaculture orchard (western Oregon, Zone 8b), and we just love them. So do the pollinators! As if the long flowering season and interesting beauty of the flowers isn't enough, there is so much insect and hummingbird action around them... Ours grew easily from seed. Highly recommend - even if you are just planting flowers for ornamental purposes.

[@colbywilliams7595]

Bees go crazy for my wild bergamot too. In my climate (zone 4-5) I find it's a little short-lived, but still well worth growing.

[@devon932001]

Thanks!

[@ParkrosePermaculture]

Oh goodness!! Thank you!!! ❤️❤️❤️

[@nancymathisen9707]

I planted various Monardas in a very high deer pressure area partly because deer aren’t supposed to like it, but they eat it here; especially the flowers. I’m hoping to grow enough native pollinator host plants that some deer browsing won’t decimate them. Fencing will probably be necessary here and there.

[@karinschott]

Can you harvest the leaves for tea? I harvest from cultivated bergamot to get an earl gray hint to some blends.

[@greenwitchnutrition7860]

Random thought: how do you deal with your dogs in the garden? Where do they go potty?

[@julie-annepineau4022]

I started some from seed last year and put it in the garden to overwinter. I was shocked at how big and full it was this year. My red throated hummingbirds, all species of bees and so many other things visit it all the time. I am wanting to divide it up a bit and move it closer to my fruit trees, would it be better to move in the spring or fall?

[@AmericanDrew420]

Is that purple flowering plant a monarda?

[@Hayley-sl9lm]

As someone who is obsessed with natives and gardens mostly for wildlife, I think that the plants we plant for nectar are some of the ones that require the least specificity when it comes to our exact state/county/ecoregion -- as long as you have a variety of flower shapes accessible to different tongue lengths in your garden. I mean I may be wrong, there's probably some species that requires a specific plant's nectar (?) but I'm not aware of any examples (there are lot of pollen specialist bees though). I'm looking for more nectar plants and this is a plant that I have watched on a lot of channels of people who use it because it's native in their state and county -- and I've been jealous. Does it require watering? Seems like the areas where it's native in state and county have summer rain, and we don't, so how has that been working?

[@GreenGranny]

I have grown this successfully 2 yrs and live in extreme heat with zero summer rain. I need to water it daily. It must not be native in my northern california climate because it needs time to develop flowers. Most wildflowers here develop quickly and drop seed because their window for producing is very small. Monarda seems to develop a lot more slowly leading me to believe their natural climate is a moist one. I've grown Spotted bee balm, and lemon monarda too and the both are spectacular!

[@Hayley-sl9lm]

​​@@GreenGrannyThank you so much for sharing your experience, so it probably would need some help watering up here too depending on the weather and where it's planted. Seems like Angela has good organic matter in her soil, mine is all compacted so even though I live near her I don't know if it would perform as well for me (and I think it was in her rain garden too, I don't have one of those yet). I have been trying to research more drought tolerant alternatives and I did look at Monardella, coyote mints-- they would be probably native to you, and they've got a similar flower structure & look. I haven't tried them out yet and I don't know if they would work as well though for a nectar source.

[@GreenGranny]

@@Hayley-sl9lm My soil is lacking organic matter as well. Coyote mint is on my wish list!