Agastache 'Black Adder' - Giant or anise hyssop
Forms long spikes of dark purple flowers.
A very attractive and easy to grow plant. Leaves have a delicious, liquorice-like smell. From mid-summer to frost, plants have spires of dark purple flowers.
Anise or giant hyssops are among the most bee-attracting plants in North America.
Historically, mass plantings of one species, anise hyssop, were established in parts of the Midwest and Canada specifically as a honey plant. Nineteenth-century beekeeper accounts claimed that a single acre could provide ample forage for 100 colonies of bees, and that bees preferred giant hyssop even to sweetclover." - 100 Plants to Feed the Bees
Black Adder is a cultivar hybridized from Agastache foeniculum (native to the Northeast US) and Agastache rugosum.
Height: 2-3 ft.
Sun: Sun
Water: Medium to dry
Bloom color: Dark purple
Bloom time: July, August, September