There is always opportunity to hone good habits and learning to let go of our clinical, neat-freak nature in our gardens is one we need to master. We all need to plant more for the pollinators and we all need to resist the big perennial chop till as late as we can push it. Agastache Blue Fortune is a regular on my planting palettes, not only for its attraction to pollinators but for its long lasting seed heads which, I have recently observed, provide a winter snack for passing Goldfinches.
Agastache will flower for four months [July - Oct]. The flowers will then fade to a beige/blonde and will give you structural interest for another four months. That’s a whopping eight months of flower power and structural performance.
Leave the secateurs, in fact lock them away, till at least mid-March or even later would be better as the finches will miss out on free seed if they end up in your compost too soon.
It’s a versatile plant, flowers can be cut for the vase lasting easily a week in water with a bit of conditioner. Foilage has a lovely liquorice aroma too.
Needs sun and moist but free draining soil to thrive. If it is happy in its place it will self seed so you will never be without and can pass around and share the spare with your friends.
There are other varieties that are equally good looking and have the endurance for providing long flowering/stem interest. Look out for ‘Blackadder’ and ‘Blue Boa’.