Attract Bees to Your Garden with Bee Balm

Bee Balm aka Monarda is a flowering plant that is beneficial to bees, birds, and other pollinators. It belongs to the mint family, Lamiaceae. The flowers can also be used to garnish salads, drinks, and desserts. Monarda is native to the North American region, where it grows in sunny places, on moist and well-drained soil. There are many different kinds of bee balm (22 different species) and below are some of the more popular varieties.

Wild Bergamot:

• Zone 3-4

• Likes sun to part shade

• Height 36-48"

• Flowers are lavender to pink colored

• Monarda fistulosa

Lemon Mint aka lemon bee balm and purple horsemint

• Zone Annual

• Likes sun to part shade

• Height 30-38"

• Bright purple-pink flowers

• Edible flowers: flavor is minty and spicy.

• Use it to make tea

• Monarda citriodora

Panorama Mix

• Zone 3-4

• Likes sun to part shade

• Height 36-44"

• Flower color shades of lavender, salmon, magenta, and pale to bright pinks.

• Monarda didyma

Spotted Bee Balm

• Zone 4

• Likes sun to part shade

• Height 12-36"

• Flower color light purple-cream

• Monarda punctata

Bee balm grows best in moist soil (but not drenched) and full sun, but can tolerate part shade thought it won't grow as well. Make sure to give it adequate spacing as it is prone to powdery mildew. A note about zones I do a lot of research when writing my posts and different sites have different information. If you are in zone 3, you can plant zone 4 perennials if your okay with taking a bit of a gamble. A zone 4 perennial may survive a zone 3 winter and it may not.

I have grown Lemon Bee Balm in my garden and it is gorgeous. All my research says it is an annual, but I have found that it comes back year after year. To me it looks like the plant is coming back, but it could be self seeding. I use the flowers in flower bouquets. My Wild Bergamot plant keeps coming back year after year. I haven't grown the other 2 though I plan on growing wild spotted bee balm and panorama this year.