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Bee-balm blooms are a sweet treatBy Lee ReichAssociated Press The plant that many people call bee-balm is more frequently admired in the wild than in the garden. Its flowers, perched high atop four-foot stems, brighten the dappled shade of woodland borders with their pale lavender heads. In good soil, bee-balm spreads rapidly, and fear of the plant taking over the garden is one reason some gardeners avoid planting it. Some gardeners also avoid planting bee-balm because it is so susceptible to powdery mildew. This disease does little harm to the plants, but does not look good. Actually, that wild “bee-balm” with the lavender flowers is more correctly called wild bergamot, which is a wild relative of the truly named and more frequently cultivated bee-balm. The real bee-balm, typically with scarlet flowers that are attractive to hummingbirds, also parades under some other common names, such as Oswego tea and horsemint. The former name came about because the herb was first described in Oswego, N.Y., and was used by colonists as a substitute for the heavily taxed British tea. A few garden varieties have been selected, ranging in color from white (Snow White and Snow Queen) to deep red (Mahogany). If you want to impress people with your knowledge of perennial varieties, tell them that you particularly like the bee-balm varieties Cambridge Scarlet and Croftway Pink — very British-sounding, very beautiful, and very available. In fact, bee-balm is a New World plant that was transplanted into the gardens of Britain’s King Charles I almost 400 years ago. True bee-balm, like wild bergamot, is susceptible to powdery mildew, although some varieties — Marshall’s Delight, Blue Stocking, and Violet Queen, for example — are fairly resistant. The scarlet flowers of bee-balm are just about as striking as those of another wildflower blooming in part shade — the cardinal flower. But, whereas the cardinal flower is somewhat exacting in its growth requirements, bee-balms (and wild bergamot, for that matter) are easy to grow. To whit: Give them any reasonably good soil situated in full sun or partial shade. These plants also are easy to propagate from seeds and from softwood cuttings. Of course, you also can propagate bee-balm — or wild bergamot — by division of the crowns, which anyway needs to be done every couple of years or so, if you grow this plant. [an error occurred while processing this directive] |
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