The ones I planted last fall made it through the winter fine down here. I have an order for more from Lazy S's Farm that should be coming soon. Even though the ones I bought last year were dirt cheap ($1 each at Lowe's) I couldn't afford to pay Lazy S's prices every year.

Sometimes they sell some locally around here. But not at the big box stores were they wouldn't cost too much. Even the nursery ones would be cheapr than mail order though because you don't have the shipping fees. But High Country Gardens has the finest selection of Agastache I have ever seen and they have the hardy types that our local nurseries do not. So I keep buying there.

Agastache 'Cotton Candy' is my favorite now. I planted plugs in fall 2009 and they overwintered and then bloomed from mid-April until frost here in my zone 7b during the first season in 2010. They are planted high and dry and carried green basal foliage all winter. They are looking great for a repeat -- I'll be cutting off last year's dead stems tomorrow.

Cameron

I love agastache too, but I find that mine only overwinter a couple of times, expecially with the pretty, airy types like Acapulco. I recently checked out a bunch of garden books, & one of them says they are not long lived, although that is the first time I have read that. I can usually pick up some nice plants here pretty cheap, & will do so when I spot them this year.

I've winter sowed agastache the past two years with great success and they all bloom 1st year from seed. Hazzard's has quite an extensive selection of agastache seed types to choose from and winter sown plants are much tougher than nursery-grown plants, not to mention they cost just pennies to grow. I so enjoy the agastache for it's fragrance as well as the colorful blooms and flower forms that are so distinct in the garden. Seeds are easy to collect in the fall to grow for the following season in the event the original plant dies off.

I really don't know anything about seed growth Agastaches as I don't try to do grow too much from seed (only afew types of annuals each year). I do know the ones I buy from High Country gardens are cutting grown and they recommend not letting them go to seed. I have never seen a seed on my Agastaches nor do I ever get seedlings.

Agastaches are really fussy about their location and drainage. If it's not exactly right they die off during the winter. But the plants just flower and flower and they are so pretty. Plus great hummingbird magnets. I just love them.

I agree that High Country Gardens has the most beautiful agastaches. I wonder if the suggestion not to let them go to seed is a way to keep people ordering more plants instead of collecting seeds and growing them yourself? They might be hybrids, so the seeds might not come true.

I echo gardenweed about winter sowing agastaches. This is how I have agastaches in my yard, and I have four that are going on four years old now and I have three that I winter sowed last year. I have Sunset Hyssop.

If you haven't, check out the winter sowing forum here. If you have a milk jug and some potting soil, you could plant one container of agastache seeds and have upwards of 16 seedlings in the container.

I have clay soil. I have bad drainage and much of my yard has standing water in it and squishes like a damp sponge through May because of such poor drainage (my sump pump has been running 24 hours a day for the past week and my yard still has snow). Yet, my winter sown agastaches keep thriving.

I think HG is a great company, and I have been happy with what I have ordered from them. I also think winter sowing might be another way to supplement your agastaches with less $$ investment. :)

cheers,
Norabelle

I'm not sure if any of my agastache made it. but all but one of the peony's I got last fall are up.

If the agastache did not make it, I will order t least a couple for the butterfly part of the garden.
kay

Kay- Hummingbirds absolutely love them that is why they are called Hummingbird Mints.

Norabelle - Most of High Country Gardens Agastaches are their own hybrid creations. So I expect why they don't come true from Seed.

I have heard of Wintersowing but I am not much interested in seed sowing and do as least as I can get away with. That is I do some annuals that are so easy anyone can manage such as cosmos and zinnias and also some things like sunflowers and mexican sunflowers that I can only get by seed.

Hello, I usually post over on the Potager Forum, and pop over to
Cottage gardens occasionally. I love Agastaches. Deer don't bother them and bees love 'em. My son calls them "bee filling stations".

Both of my Blue Fortunes are green at the base. I'd love to try other varieties especially a pinkish colored one. Would it be too late to start some winter sown seeds in zone 6?

Wonbyherwits, I don't have much luck with agastache. High and dry here seems to get too dry.
What do you do to your soil, and how often do you water? I was planning on asking you that anyway, because you grow some things beautifully that I struggle with.

Thanks,
GGG

ali-b - I don't think it's too late to winter sow agastache in Z6. They're not on my list of seeds that need cold stratification and I still haven't WS them myself this year. I'm going to add more Agastache rupestris/sunset hyssop after seeing it for the first time last year. It doesn't get as tall as some of the others plus it's so delicate and pretty:

{{gwi:283544}}

We don't even get that cold here and I feel like most of my agastache and penstemons etc died. I dunno. Maybe they'll come back and surprise me. But my dreams of having big gigantic 2-3 year old patches of them are perhaps naive unless I figure out what I'm doing wrong. haha.

They don't like to be soggy. So they need great drainage, even in the winter. I plant mine in various terraced and raised beds and plant the crowns high. Also keep the much away in winter.

I have never had an Agastache overwinter if I just planted it in a regular garden bed no matter what I did. So they are fussy.

maybe I'll try them again but plant up a berm a bit higher, etc. thanks, rita!

I was happy to see my 2 Ava's showing new growth. All my agastache's
survived the snow we had last winter. I will be starting new ones from
seed this season. They are pretty easy to start from seed.

gardenweed -I'm glad that I can still wintersow them. That sunset hyssop is a great shade. The info on keeping them well-drained explains why mine seem happy. My blue fortune are in front of my potager garden which slopes down slightly.

Agastache 'Firebird'

{{gwi:201998}}

I moved this plant last spring and it bloomed nicely. Started several others from the same seed batch and will use them in my front bed to replace 'Fairytale' Veronica which has terrible foilage in the fall.

Very pretty.

I waited awhile to make sure my count of dead plants and what I needed to replace was correct and last night I ordered from High Country Gardens. I bought 3 Indigo Spires Blue Salvia as well as the replacement Agastaches. The Indigo Spires is one I plant each spring for afew years now but it is only an annual here, never comes thru the winter. But by early summer it's blooming and just keeps right on going until a hard freeze.

Count me in as an Agastache lover also - can't get enough for the bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. I have great success with wintersowing them and do them every year even though most of mine are perennial. I do find that some are shortlived however so always want back-ups each year since they bloom the first year. Extras go to our Garden Web spring plant sale for the Raleigh NC area .....

Lynne

I owe many thanks to Cameron and Roper. Their posts last year piqued my curiosity and when I found gallon pots of Heatwave at $1 each last September I was hooked.

This year I added Tutti-Frutti and Heather Queen from Lazy S's Farm. Had ordered Raspberry Summer too, but Deb said they had a crop loss. Last week on a nursery visit I lucked out and found Raspberry Summer and Summer Fiesta. I can't believe I went from zero agastaches to 24 in 8 months time.

winter-kill isn't a problem here in n ca. but something came through my garden bed last summer and ate ONLY the agastaches, ALL of them, right down to the ground. i planted another and covered it with an ugly cheap wire trash basket and it is still thriving.
but i am growing asclepias in that bed now because i am sick of trying to protect so many plants from gophers and deer, and now i have this mystery adversary. ~sigh~
min

My plants from High Country Gardens arrived today and I hope to get them all planted tomorrow. Plants from them grow quickly once they are in the ground. I have gotten many Hummingbirds mints and other plants these past few years.

So I planted all my order from High Country Gardens and my empty spots from winter losses are again full of new plants. Don't honestly know why some of them died. For instance on some I bought two plants of a particular hummingbird mint last spring and planted side by side. So now one of the pair on some is dead while the other is fine. Can't figgure out why. Anyway, thanks to the power of replacement plants, all is well again.