Finally, a hummingbird mint compact enough for patio containers, yet boasting all the color and scent of its full-sized cousins. Less than a foot high, this beautiful perennial is bursting with bicolor blooms and licorice-scented foliage.
Arizona Sunset Hyssop is a pollinator magnet, bringing in butterflies and bees as well as the hummingbirds that give this perennial its common name. They begin as soon as the first flowers open in midsummersoftly colored, tubular, and boasting lavender shades with pops of peach. If they're this eye-catching to humans, imagine what the winged crowd thinks.
The blooms last into fall in most climates, and it's hard to mourn them when they pass, because the foliage has a strong, evocative licorice-mint scent that's just heavenly on a warm summer day. Brush past Arizona Sunset Hyssop and you will be rewarded with fragrance.
Reaching just 8 to 10 inches high and wide, this hyssop is small enough for containers, and makes an excellent companion to unscented plants of all kinds. Its long, slender stems and tubular blooms pair well with daisy-shaped flowers from gaillardia to gazania, and its upright, arching habit is a good contrast for mounding petunias and layered geraniums. In the border or container, Arizona Sunset Hyssop shows off.
And it's so easy to grow. Start the seeds indoors, transplant when the spring soil warms up, and it will even bloom for you the first year. Arizona Sunset Hyssop loves heat, needs good soil drainage, and doesn't mind wet, cold, or even drought. Deer and other nibbling animals tend to leave it alone, thanks to the scented foliage. It's very low maintenance, and will thrive happily for years, bringing pollinators on the wing all season long. Highly recommended.
