Bring in the birds, bees and butterflies
There’s a fantastic new range of agastache that is hitting the nurseries now.
If you want a hardy perennial to encourage butterflies and nectar feeders into your garden and bees to pollinate your fruit and vegies, this is the plant for you.
People may have heard of them called giant hyssop or Mexican hyssop but they belong to the mint family and have very aromatic leaves.
My grandmother always had agastache growing in her garden among the vegies as a bee attractant but also because they flower so profusely and look spectacular. The flowers are borne on densely packed whorls on spikes all summer and autumn.
The new agastache Fiesta range comes in a variety of colours, including red, salmon/orange, hot pink, violet, blue and lemon. It’s great to see these hardy nanna plants coming back in vogue. Our nannas knew a thing or two.
All agastache need to grow in full sun, with free-draining soil. Most of them get to 60cm high and 60cm wide. They make great potted specimens or you can plant them into the garden with some compost. Use slow-release fertiliser and a wetting agent for outdoor plants.
Prune them down to the ground at the end of autumn.
Agastache Sunrise Fiesta. Picture: PGA
My picks are:
Agastache Candy Pink Fiesta , the tallest of the new variety, grows to 90cm high x 60cm wide with masses of lolly pink flowers.
Agastache Sunrise Fiesta starts off with pink buds that turn bright orange when they open fully, a spectacular sight when mass planted.
Agastache Raspberry Fiesta grows to 60cm high and 60cm wide with raspberry-coloured flowers.
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