Agastache rugosa ‘Golden Jubilee’ (July 2011)
Genus: Agastache (Family: Lamiaceae/Labiatae), Species: rugosa
I like the colours blue and yellow, so my garden has a “Blue and Yellow” bed, with flower colours really ranging from cream to dark purple. At this time of year, it is actually mostly a green bed, as the tulips and muscari have gone over and other things are still getting ready to flower. I have managed to find a couple of plants which also have yellow-ish leaves and I was particularly impressed with this Agastache rugosa ‘Golden Jubilee’, because it combined yellow nettle-like leaves with attractive spikes of purpley-blue flowers.
There is only one snag – while it was sold as a hardy herbaceous perennial, it hasn’t yet made a comeback (mid May), so I think we may have lost it in the last winter. That makes it, at best, borderline hardy. It looks like the plant objected to the past winter, which was reasonably mild, but also rather wet. Actually, today we mourned the loss of several other plants which can take a dry cold winter, but have turned up their little toes at the wet, including three of my biggest helianthemums.
Since plants in the genus Agastache mostly come from dry habitats, this is perhaps not a surprise. Present disappointments notwithstanding, this herbaceous perennial is happy in a sunny site in ordinary garden soil, but will also tolerate light shade. It grows to about 60 cm in height and for me flowered its socks off for months. Maybe it just wore itself out… It can be grown from seeds, so I might start a batch next year.
Agastache rugosa ‘Golden Jubilee’ (late May 2011)
Plants in my Garden 