Bee balm
Monarda didyma
also called bergamot, monarda
Shaggy mint-family bloom — a banquet for bees and hummingbirds.
- Type
- Flower · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Red
- Sunlight
- Full sun to part shade
- Watering
- Moderate
- Soil
- Rich, moist
- Feeding
- Compost mulch in spring, and keep the nitrogen modest.
- USDA zones
- 4a–9b
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- July
- Pruning
- Cut it to the ground in autumn, and lift and divide the clump every two or three years.
- Sow indoors
- 49 days before the last spring frost
- Plant out
- at the last spring frost
- First harvest
- 80 days after the last spring frost
- Harvest ends
- at the first fall frost
- Mar–Jul Spring Growth
- Jul–Sep Flowering
- Sep–Oct Growing
- Oct–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 17.7 in
- In-row spacing
- 17.7 in
- Between rows
- 19.7 in
- Square-foot density
- 1 per square
- Root system
- Running rhizomes
- Working depth
- 4–12 in
- Can reach
- 18 in down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 3.5–6.5 ft across, about 2–4× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 12 in of soil
It travels underground, and it does not stop where you would like it to. Taking the tops off does nothing at all to the run, and every fragment left behind is a new plant. In open ground the only boundary that holds is a barrier sunk two spits deep, or a container with its rim standing clear of the soil.
It runs at the root and the middle of the clump goes bare as it travels, which is the signal to lift the whole thing, keep the young outer pieces and throw the centre away.
The habit is Bee balm’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- When
- Edible and herbal as well as ornamental (Monarda — bergamot). Pick leaves for tea any time, best just before flowering; pick flowers freshly open mid-morning in high summer; cut vase stems in cool morning.
- What to look for
- Flowers at peak when the shaggy whorl is fully colored and individual tubular florets pull out with a drop of nectar at the base. Leaves most aromatic pre-bloom. Vase stems: first florets open on the whorl.
- How to harvest
- Snip stems above a leaf pair; for tea, cut the top third of leafy stems. Pull individual florets to scatter on salads (spicy-oregano flavor). Get vase stems into water immediately.
- How often
- Regular cutting and deadheading extends bloom 4–6 weeks; cutting also improves airflow, which matters — monarda is a powdery-mildew magnet.
- Storing the crop
- Vase life 5–7 days. Leaves and florets dry quickly on screens and keep a year airtight — the classic Oswego tea. Refrigerate fresh florets in a damp-towel-lined box for a day or two only.
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Beneficial nematodes Steinernema & Heterorhabditis spp.Hunts Slugs & snails
Microscopic worms watered onto damp soil that hunt down soil-dwelling grubs and release a bacterium that kills them within days. Timing is the whole thing: warm, damp soil and a small target grub, which means late summer for most of what they are used against.
- Centipedes ChilopodaHunts Slugs & snails
Flat, fast, one pair of legs to a segment — and a predator, unlike the slow round millipede it is constantly confused with. It hunts slugs, cutworms, springtails and woodlice by night under mulch and stones. Learn the difference and leave this one alone.
- Frogs & toads AnuraHunts Slugs & snails
A resident toad works the beds every night for slugs, cutworms, and weevils. Recruit them with water — even a sunken basin pond — plus damp shade and an upturned-pot toad house; skip the slug pellets that poison their prey.
- Garden birds PasseriformesHunts Slugs & snails
Both things are true: birds strip your currants and a brood of blue tits takes several thousand caterpillars out of one fruit tree in a fortnight. Net what you must and welcome them everywhere else — a nest box near the apples is worth more than a spray.
- Ground beetle CarabidaeHunts Slugs & snails
Fast, glossy night hunters that patrol the soil surface for slugs, cutworms, and root-fly larvae. Give them daytime cover — thick perennial edges, stepping stones, a log — and skip the tillage that wrecks their burrows.
- Hedgehog Erinaceus europaeusHunts Slugs & snails
A European animal, and worth saying so plainly: there are no hedgehogs in North America, and the ally that does the same night shift here is the toad, the opossum or the ground beetle. Where they do occur, cut a gap in the fence and skip the pellets.
- Rove beetle StaphylinidaeHunts Slugs & snails
Slim, quick beetles with short wing cases that hunt in soil and litter, taking root-fly eggs and larvae, fungus-gnat larvae, and mites. Mulch and undisturbed ground keep them resident year-round.
- Salamanders & newts CaudataHunts Slugs & snails
Damp-loving hunters of slugs, worms, woodlice and beetle larvae that spend the day under a log or a stone and work the beds at night. Companions to the toads: they want the same damp shade, the same log pile, and the same absence of slug pellets.
- Snakes & lizards Colubridae & PhrynosomatidaeHunts Slugs & snails
A garter snake works the beds for slugs and voles and a fence lizard clears grasshoppers off a sunny wall. Almost every snake a gardener meets is harmless and useful; give them a log pile, a warm flat stone and a bit of cover and they stay.
Echinacea, Phlox, Grasses, Rudbeckia
Good neighbors
Its leaves smell of bergamot (like Earl Gray tea), and bees, butterflies and hummingbirds adore it.
Green-leaved flowers, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com