Agastache “Blue Fortune” blooms year after year with lovely small tube-shaped lavender blue flowers. (Photo courtesy Ginny Rosenkranz)
There are not many plants other than annuals that will flower from summer into frost, but there are a few wonderful herbaceous perennials that live for quite a while and will bloom from summer until the first hard frost.
Agastache “Blue Fortune,” also called “giant hyssop” or “hummingbird mint,” blooms year after year with lovely small tube-shaped lavender blue flowers.
These blooms covers the 4- inch flower spikes that sit on top of 3-foot tall, stiff square stems and flower all summer into fall, inviting butterflies and hummingbirds to dance in the garden.
Although the flowers are not fragrant, the gray green leaves with silver undersides are, smelling like anise or licorice.
These beautiful flowering perennials thrive in full sun in well-drained soils, and once established are able to survive the high heat of a Maryland summer.
It is always a nice idea to trim off the flowers that are done blooming, and it encourages the plants to produce more flowers.
Plants grow well in a border, a pollinator’s garden and even in containers.
Pollinators love the flowers but deer and rabbits will leave the flowers and the fragrant leaves alone.
Like many lovely herbaceous perennials, these plants only need to be lightly fertilized once every two to three years in the late fall.
(Editor’s Note: Ginny Rosenkranz is a commercial horticulture specialist with the University of Maryland Extension.)
