When it comes to landscaping the farmstead or urban homestead, it’s nice to be able to include plants that are both beautiful and functional. Bee balm is a North American wildflower that easily fills ...

Bee balm is a pretty perennial lavender-colored flower native to Wisconsin prairies. It goes by a few other names including monarda, wild bergamot and Oswego tea. The Latin name is Monarda fistulosa.

The plant that many people call bee-balm is more frequently admired in the wild than in the garden. Its flowers, perched high atop four-foot stems, brighten the dappled shade of woodland borders with ...

Bee balm is a must for summer gardens because it provides a month or more of colorful blooms. Several monarda species -- including red-flowered M. didyma and lavender-flowered M. fistulosa -- are ...

Boost pollination in your yard by planting this beautiful flower right next to your bird bath, drawing bees, butterflies, and birds to your plants.

Seems a bit hard to believe now, but it wasn’t that long ago folks created their gardens around plants that did not attract bees. My how things change. Of course these days we’ve learned the ...

Soft lavender flowers resembling tiny pom-poms are blooming in my yard. They’re also displaying in a wild patch of native flowers at a nearby local park, as well as in many prairies and naturalized ...

Planting for Pollinators is the Master Gardener Theme for 2016 and the perfect perennial for your garden that your pollinators will love is bee balm (Monarda). In fact you'll see this blooming now in ...

Kelly Schultz peered into the lavender blooms of a bee balm plant and gasped. Gathering nectar was a fuzzy insect with a black head and a rusty-colored patch on its yellow back. It was the federally ...