This shockingly-hot pink variety of Monarda – better known as bee balm – called to me last year, and I promptly gave it a prominent place in the garden. Keeping it well-watered and pampered with a decent dose of manure and compost, I took extra special care of it. Most perennials require a year or two to really get going and show what they can do – and it is in this time when the care and watering is most important.
After it finished its first bloom cycle, I cut it back about halfway down the stalks, hoping it would throw off a few flowers later in the season. Its color was so grand I wanted more. Rather than do that, however, it quickly became afflicted with a debilitating bout of mildew, its leaves shriveling and blackening like Dumbledore’s hand when he dared to destroy a horcrux.
It died down tot he ground, something I’d never seen a Monarda do, but I had faith it would survive the winter, and come back in some form. As part of the mint family, they are scrappy survivors, even if mildew does wreak its havoc in our humid summers. This spring, only a few stems poked through the ground, but they grew well, and this one is now in glorious bloom. We shall see how it fares as the summer arrives and progresses.
