mine did a little bit, much much more the second year.

:)

Yep. Be sure to pinch it. As soon as it's about 4" tall, take the top two leaves off each stem. Do this several times as it grows. Everywhere you pinch it, two new stems will grow. Pinch those too. Then the next ones. You'll have a huge, lush full plant that should bloom in July or August. I do this to mine every year, and it starts blooming in June.

If you don't pinch, you'll get a couple of very tall stalks with tiny blooms on the end of each. Pinching forces more stalks meaning more blooms.

My experience is the same as Doris describes. Although, my anise hyssop, agastache foeniculum, bloomed quite a bit more its first year than my sunset hyssop, agastache rupestris.

I am going to try pinching per Token's suggestion. I really would love to see more blooms on the sunset hyssop.

cheers,
Norabelle

Thanks, Token. I have agastache for the first time and just would have let it do its own thing. Now I'll try pinching them off.

Caryl

I have photo proof. Pinching turns this...

{{gwi:357159}}

into this...

{{gwi:362069}}

and finally, this!

{{gwi:363423}}

{{gwi:362070}}

You'll set the blooms back a couple of weeks, but it's worth it. Just think of all the seed you can collect from that many blooms. LOL!

This also works for echinacea, bee balm, lavender, salvias, almost anything that blooms on the tips of the new growth.

Agastache anista blooming first year in a new garden.
{{gwi:363424}}From 2009 Historic

HA! I planted angel's trumpet with my cannas too. I love the combination.

I must try pinching this year. My agastache bloomed a little the first year, but shot up the next year to almost 6 feet. I guess the pinching makes it wider but shorter. The fence in the background is 8 feet tall.
{{gwi:363425}}

Huh. Never thought to pinch agastache. THANKS! I'd love them to be fuller and less tall. I am going to try it.

Nancy
(who has to start the annual ritual of letting her thumb nail grow just a little bit longer than her usual "closely cropped" state so that she can pinch plants easily in season!!!)

Some are taller than others, but the Golden Jubilee will stay about 4' with pinching. My purple hyssop last year was 6' tall. And I pinched.

Thanks for those pics!
Helps me think about where to put it.

How would it do in less than full sun?- lot of sun, but not full as in all day.
How invasive is it?

The other hyssup I have - I don't know the name, I think it just grows naturally - is a weed?
Smells like licorace.
I like it - it attracts bees, but if I left it to itself, it would take over.

thanks

I've had a few reseeds from the Golden Jubilee, but nothing terrible. The birds and goldfinches love the seeds and will eat a lot of what falls over the winter. That one above gets about 4 hours of sun in summer. I moved some of the white blooming hyssop to a sunnier spot last fall, it's just starting to return, so I'll have to let you know how it does later. One of the NC blogs I read has hers planted in full sun where they get no supplemental water and they do fine.

The critters in my 2010 garden will be sending you all hugs, and me too -

great info!!

You guys are such a font of information. I would have planted my Agastache in the middle of my garden thinking it was only going to be about 3 feet tall. Now it'll go in the back. (The package has only a picture of the flowers and says nothing of height range).

Caryl

Two things I realized about agastache last year that make it a great plant:

One patch of my 3 year old Golden Jubliee is in dabbled shade most of the day (maybe an hour or two of direct sun) and does fine. This is one adaptable plant!

I planted some of the white flowering kind in a container with impatiens balfouri and it looks great! Really nice white spires. I usually don't think of using perennials in containers but I had so much of it. Also in dabbled shade with just a few hours of sun.