Given its height (2-4 feet), bee balm makes for an excellent background plant in a flower bed. Learn more about plants that attract butterflies and hummingbirds. Bumblebees and a few other insects are too big to get into some of the smaller tubular flowers of some bee balms, so the insects practice something called “nectar robbing.” The insects punch a tiny hole at the base of the flower to access the nectar, bypassing the flower’s pollen and “robbing” it of its nectar.īesides attracting pollinators, the seed heads will attract birds in the fall and winter. In the garden, its most frequent visitors are hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies because they have the long tongues required to reach the tubular flowers’ nectar. Flower colors include white, pink, red, lavender, and purple.

Slender, tubular flowers are produced in 2- to 3-inch-wide flower heads in June and July.

About Bee Balmīee balm is a Native American plant not only known for its attractive scarlet flowers that bloom in the summertime but also its fragrant foliage. This native plant is beloved by hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies! Learn how to plant and grow bee balm. The Audubon Society.A perennial favorite, bee balm ( Monarda spp.), aka wild bergamot, flowers in mid- to late summer. The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers, Eastern Region. Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. ^ Edible and Medicinal Plants of the West, Gregory L.

'Restoring wildlife habitat and traditional plants with the Oneida Nation'. Fish and Wildlife Service Midwest Region. ^ The Xerces Society (2016), Gardening for Butterflies: How You Can Attract and Protect Beautiful, Beneficial Insects, Timber Press.Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture. Greensboro, North Carolina: National Plant Data Team. County-level distribution map from the North American Plant Atlas (NAPA). World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP). The Native Americans of Oswego, New York, made the leaves into a tea, giving the plant one of its common names. It was also used as a carminative herb by Native Americans to treat excessive flatulence. The Winnebago used an herbal tea made from beebalm as a general stimulant. Beebalm is a natural source of the antiseptic thymol, the primary active ingredient in modern commercial mouthwash formulas. An herbal tea made from the plant was also used to treat mouth and throat infections caused by dental caries and gingivitis. The Blackfoot people recognized this plant's strong antiseptic action, and used poultices of the plant for skin infections and minor wounds. īeebalm has a long history of use as a medicinal plant by many Native Americans, including the Blackfoot. Several cultivars have been selected for different flower color, ranging from white through pink to dark red and purple. It grows best in full sun, but tolerates light shade and thrives in any moist, but well-drained soil. Cultivation and uses Ĭrimson beebalm is extensively grown as an ornamental plant, both within and outside its native range it is naturalized further west in the United States and also in parts of Europe and Asia. This plants attracts hummingbirds and is a larval host to the hermit sphinx, orange mint moth, and the raspberry pyrausta. It grows in dense clusters along stream banks, moist thickets, and ditches, blooming for about 8 weeks from early/mid to late summer. It has ragged, bright red tubular flowers 3–4 centimetres (1.2–1.6 in) long, borne on showy heads of about 30 together, with reddish bracts. The leaves are minty fragrant when crushed. The 7–18 centimetres (2.8–7.1 in) long, ovate to ovate-lanceolate leaves with serrate margins are medium to deep green, placed opposite on square, hollow stems. didyma is a perennial plant that grows to 0.6–1.2 metres (2 ft 0 in – 3 ft 11 in) in height and spreads 0.4–0.6 metres (1 ft 4 in – 2 ft 0 in). The genus name comes from Nicolas Monardes, who described the first American flora in 1569. Its odor is considered similar to that of the bergamot orange, which is used to flavor Earl Grey tea. Monarda didyma, the crimson beebalm, scarlet beebalm, scarlet monarda, Eau-de-Cologne plant, Oswego tea, or bergamot, is an aromatic herb in the family Lamiaceae, native to eastern North America from Maine west to Ontario and Minnesota, and south to northern Georgia.

Scarlet bee balm