Wild Bergamot | Monarda fistulosa
An aromatic and tasty native beauty.
In midsummer, this native wildflower graces the landscape with its light lavender blossoms, offering nectar to bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. To humans, Wild Bergamot, also known as Bee Balm, provides food and medicine. Its leaves and flowers are highly aromatic and spicy, like Greek oregano, and are used similarly. Sip teas made from the leaves and flowers, or add them to sauces, soups, and salads. Make tinctures to support the upper respiratory system. Or, most simply, toss the lovely tubular flowers onto any dish.
Broadcast Wild Bergamot outside about 8 weeks before the first fall frost, or surface sow indoors 4-6 weeks before last frost and gently press the seeds into the soil, then transplant seedlings outside in spring or summer, 6-8 weeks later. Plants usually do not produce flowers until their second year. Leaves and foliage are edible, and make a delicious tea.
Days to Germination 5-25 days
Days to Maturity 365 days
Planting Depth 0-¼"
Spacing in Row 12"
Spacing Between Rows 12"
Height at Maturity 48"
Width at Maturity 12"
Sun Preference Full Sun
Hardiness Zone Range Zones 4-8
Art by Wendy Hollender. A botanical illustrator, Wendy crafts beautiful coloured-pencil and watercolour renderings of plants of all types and teaches others how to do the same. With herbalist Dina Falconi, she created Foraging & Feasting: A Field Guide and Wild Food Cookbook.
About Hudson Valley Seed Company
They are a values-driven seed company that practices and celebrates responsible seed production and stewardship. Hudson Valley are best known for their beautiful artist-design seed packs (Art Packs) that appeal to gardeners, gift buyers, and lovers of art and nature.
These Art Packs, most fundamentally, tell stories. Hudson Valley challenges artists to convey in a manner that is fully their own, the history and meaning of the seed variety contained in each pack. These stories were once integral to traditional societies-stories of seeds were often origin stories for entire communities and peoples, and the lore and beliefs that accumulated around seed varieties reflected the nearly familial way in which gardeners and farmers regarded their crops. Our society is, by and large, no longer connected to plants this way. But we like to think these Art Packs help to stitch our fragmented world back together: useful seeds, evocative art, both equally valuable to our experience of being human.