Anise Hyssop, Licorice Mint
Agastache foeniculum easy to grow, perennial, and outstanding for tea, for drawing pollinators,and in the landscape. Delicious scent somewhere like a mix of anise and mint, but not actually either one. Long blooming nectar-laden purple flowers attract bees and parasitic wasps, butterflies and hummingbirds. And with all that, it is reliably perennial too, cold-hardy down to frigid zone 4. This trouble-free Midwestern native is used for everything from cough syrup to cut flowers. Some specialty growers for the restaurant trade even put a few of the young leaves in salad mix. The tea induces sweating and strengthens the heart, was used also for fevers, colds, and by Native Americans as a cough medicine. Sow or transplant 1–1½' apart in well-drained warm loam. Perennial can grow 3-5' tall, 2' wide. 50 seeds