Pink Bee Balm

Pink bee balm complete with bees

 Yesterday I mentioned that the pink bee balm I had planted at the edge of the garden last year is doing very well.  Gina asked for a picture, and so I took a few and also had my husband take some, as his photography skills are far superior to mine.  However, his close-ups (taken a couple of hours after the photos I took) show the raggedyness of the flowers, where I actually captured a couple of bees in mine.  I think the sun was going down and the bees had left the flowers when he took his pictures.

 

How unusual ... or so it seems to us, anyway.  The top blossom here seems to have sprouted directly out of the one below it.

 Many years ago, a friend gave me some bee balm plants.  They didn't do much for a long time, then they blossomed for several years in a row.  These were the red bee balm. 
 
Hummingbirds love it!  Those plants did spread a bit, then they disappeared. 
 
I think they may have been choked out by the jewelweed which is rampant in the area where they were planted.  Jewelweed can be downright invasive.

Jewelweed

Last year, I bought a small pot of bee balm on an impulse at Lowe's.  I don't think the tag said it would be pink.  I was expecting red, but of course there were no flowers at the time I planted it.  It didn't flower last year at all, but I noticed that the plants did spread.
 
And this year ... wow!  Did they ever take off!

All this from a little plant that cost less than $4!

I am no gardener at all, but I do hope to continue planting a few perennials each year.  And I am going to get much more bee balm planted as it seems to do very well in that spot.