Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
ALMOST BEEKEEPING - RELATED TOPICS => GARDENING AROUND THE HOUSE => Topic started by: tillie on May 16, 2007, 10:27:00 pm
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Ever since Cindi mentioned it, I have been on the search for anise hyssop. It must not be in demand in Georgia because I have been to five nurseries in Atlanta (two of which are the best and often have unusual plants: Ash and Simpson and the other is Hastings). Today as I drove up to the mountains for the Young Harris Beekeeping Institute, I passed a nursery near Cleveland, GA - Mountain View Nursery on Hwy 115. They are never open when I pass it, but today they WERE!!!!!
I went in and asked a young woman who told me that the herbs were on a long table toward which she pointed, but she didn't think they had hyssop. I wandered down that way and saw no hyssop and felt defeated for the sixth time. Then the owner of the nursery made his way toward me and asked if I were looking for anise hyssop. Yes, I said and he had it - loads of it! I bought three gorgeous plants - one for my house in the mountains and the other two for Atlanta. The plants are about 18-20 inches tall in large pots and should survive even having me plant them.
I am so excited to have finally found it. Thanks, Cindi, for the inspiration. Now if I can just keep it alive in the Ga drought.
Linda T happy in the N Ga mountains
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I know the feeling. I been looking around too, and finally found some last week :-D
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Bluestone perrenials, a company I have liked for years, sells anise hyssop as well as an hyssop they call "honeybee blue". Great perrennial source. Ebay has hyssop seed too. Latin name is agastache hyssop if that helps in finding it elsewhere. Awesome bee plant and good looker too!. Check out russian sage as well. I planted borage and canary vine based in Cindi's rec as well. If they are half as good....
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I grew Honeybee Blue this year, terrible germination, but I've got three nice strong plants to set out.
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Anise Hyssop rocks...it has a delicious licorise like fragrance when you brush up against it...Another you might all like is African Blue Basil..it is a hybrid basil that bees absolutely love, and so do I...Very pretty light lavender flower spikes...propagate from cuttings...
Funny how we can put things out there...and they eventually appear...on way or another! Happy you found the Hyssop Linda!
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Yeah!!! Glad you found the anise hyssop. I have the perennial one growing around here, took about 35 cuttings and will be planting them in the ground soon. I also planted agastache from seed, planted about 60 of the plants, they are different than the perennial hyssop. I will take pictures an dpost them on the forum later on in summer when they bloom. Love the licorice scent of the leaves and flowers, no wonder the bees love this plant to pieces.
Borage, can't get a better flower for the bees, withstands the rains, the droooping flowers do not lose their nectar if it rains. Right on!!!! Canary creeper too, wait til you see the bees on these beautiful little flowers on the great big vine!!!! Have a wonderful day, great life and health. Cindi
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We raise Anise Hyssop to prevent deer from eating our garden and
flowers.
We are the last farm in the area. Subdivisions everywhere. The deer have no
food source except gardens and flowers.
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Ronbert. What a fabulous thing to do to support the deer (and save your garden). I am impressed. Yes, where do the animals go when humans take over, it is unavoidable, but it is a sad thing in many ways. Have a wonderful day, great life. Cindi
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Your post made me think about one of the other posts here entitled "too much honey not enough brood"...I hope we are not headed to "too many humans, not enough nature"...
Sorry for being OT... ronberts post just made me ponder that..
Peace & Harmony to All
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ronbert
do you raise hyssop for the deer to eat or does it sned the deer away from your plants because the deer don't like it
thanks dave
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I'm in the mountains where my anise hyssop is blooming and is beautiful. No bees, but I don't have bees up here. The sourwood is also in full bloom.
I'll try to post a picture later.
Linda T in the N Ga Mountains
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Here is a photo of the agastache ( hyssop ) in my front garden, it is quite large. The bees are interested in other things right now, like the squash blossoms, they exit the bloom covered in yellow pollen...so cute.
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(http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/1958/img1291tq4.th.jpg) (http://img179.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img1291tq4.jpg)
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Sharon, your anise is beautiful. I am going to have to goggle anise, (agastache), and check out the different cultivars of anise, I am very curious.
The anise hyssop that I have growing as a perennial looks 100% completely different than yours when it blooms. I will take pictures, it should be in full bloom in a couple of weeks. I am growing another anise that I propogated with seed this year, quite a fair number of plants, haven't actually counted them, but I venture there is more than 100 that I transplanted. I will count them just for fun. I do not know what these blossoms will look like when they bloom. The foliage of the seed propogated anise is completely different than the perennial anise. It will be interesting to see what the plants compare with how the bees love them. The perennial one is covered in beneficial insects all the blooming period, which extends right until frost kill. That is why I have planted to many of these plants.
We will be returning to Maple Ridge on Thursday, we left last Thursday to a family wedding in a far away place, which took 4 hours by plane. I will see enormous growth of everything on my property, and I can't wait to get home to see my family, farm, flowers, vegies and bees. Have a wonderful day, great life. I also can't wait to get back to my routine every day of going on the forum first thing when I wake up. I have not had much time to go on the forum (even a few days before we left, I was so busy getting ready for the trip), and I truly miss this part of my routine :)
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Mine doesn't look like Sharon's - it's blooming here in the mountains but not at my house in Atlanta. I saw a bumblebee on it today, but not a honeybee.
Here's what mine looks like:
(http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k288/tillielin/july42007a006.jpg)
Linda T in the beautiful N Ga Mountains
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Linda, Cindi, I think yours are probably true anise hyssop, mine is a X ...
Now I will have to hunt for the sp Licorice Mint...
Pretty stuff!
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Linda, beautiful picture. My perennial hyssop looks like this one that you posted. I think that the foliage may be more bushy looking, perhaps not as tall, and the flower spikes, if I am remembering well enough from years gone by, are somewhat shorter. But, definitely the same cultivar. I am very anticipatory of what the anise looks like that I grew from seed, the leaves are so different than the perennial one.
Wonder why no honeybees on your anise? Mine were covered all the time with the honeybees last year. Maybe there are more attractive plants up in the mountain where you are that they don't bother with the anise. Is this a summer place you go to visit? Vacation? Have a wonderful day, great life. Cindi
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The sourwood is coming into bloom right now in N Ga and I think there are no honey bees on my hyssop up here for two reasons:
1. Any honeybees up on my mountain are all over the sourwood blooms
2. I don't have any beehives up here.
The hyssop in Atlanta will be a better test for bee interest, but when I left home last week, it wasn't in bloom yet.
Cindi: This is a house I own that I rent out two or three weekends a month. I usually come up for the fourth one since it's about a 2 hour drive from my house in Atlanta. I can't have bees up here because of the liability issues with vacation renters. However, I have several friends who live up here permanently and one of my friends has offered to let me put hives on their property. Her husband used to keep bees and he would be glad to have them again on his land so next summer I will have bees up here, just not at my house.
Linda T in the N Ga Mountains
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Linda, ooh that is so nice, a weekend away for you. Great idea of your friend to say that you could keep some hives at his place. You sound like there is a wonderful flow of the sourwood, you could take some great advantage of that. I don't know what sourwood is, but I am going to search it out. Have a wonderful day, great life. Cindi
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Mine loks like Lindat's. Bottlebrush shaped flowers. None of mine survived this last winter nad I replaced w/ more. So far, the bees arfe ignoring hyssop and russian sage. They are thick on the clover. No wories, both hyssop and sage will be blooming for the next three months. the bees obviosly have better food sources this time of year.
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Superdave,
<do you raise hyssop for the deer to eat or does it sned the deer away from your plants because the deer don't like it >
The deer don't like it!!!. It doesn't take much to keep them away. We
also use an electric fence baited with p-nut butter. It is a never ending
battle. When they get hungry nothing will stop them.