Plant Native: WILD BERGAMOT

Plant Native: Wild Bergamot, Monarda fistulosa Height: 4-5’ Spread: 2’ Sun: full sun Water: medium

Wild bergamot or beebalm is a great choice for any sun-loving, prairie style garden with its showy blooms and benefits to pollinating insects. It grows naturally in high quality prairies, savannas and margins of woods. It is a sturdy, upright perennial wildflower that slowly expands over time to form colonies. Wild beebalm is very adaptable. It thrives in full sun and moist, organic soils but also grows well in clay and high pH soils, and can take heat and drought. In summer, the plants are topped with jazzy, fragrant 2-3” wide flower clusters in soft pink or lavender. The individual, tubular flowers in each cluster are arranged in a ring, packed tightly to form a ragged, mop-headed appearance. It blooms over a long period from late summer to early fall and pollinators flock to the blooms. The nectar attracts bumblebees, butterflies, hummingbird moths and other visitors but its mint-like foliage is distasteful to deer and rabbits. This important plant is high in thymol, a strong antiseptic (also in thyme) for bee health.

Native plant recommendations from the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum, plantnebraska.org