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Please help identify this plant/shrub from BHG magazine

17 years ago

I recently purchased the Better Homes & Garden Special interest Pub. Container Gardening 2007 magazine and on page 30 there is a tall plant that is pink, purple, lavender, & gold. The legend does not mention this plant I do not believe. It reads as follows.

1. Pink yarrow

2. Purple agastache

3. Ornamental grass

4. Cosmos

However I am not familiar with #2 is it that or maybe buddleia? If it is buddleia is it one plant or several different varieties? Sorry about the pictures not being very clear. I had to scan them. The plant in question is on the upper left hand side closest to the sky.

Thank you for your help in advance,

Brenda

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Comments (9)

linlily
17 years ago
I have to guess that it is the purple agastache. I have not grown them before, but have seeds to plant this year for two different varieties of agastache. Hope someone who has grown a purple one will post.

Linda
blackswamp_girl
17 years ago
It's the agastache. Agastache foeniculum is the Latin name of that one if you want to google it for more images. In my limited experience with it, it's usually much more sprawl-y than the plant in this picture, and the flower spikes aren't always that long.
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sylvielou
17 years ago
Odd that a specialty "gardening" magazine would not include specific genus, species, and variety names. No, not odd. Make that lame. "Ornamental Grass"? What's that supposed to mean? There are thousands of cultivars of ornamental grasses. "Pink Yarrow"? What kind???

The flower in question is agastache, but doesn't tell us what kind. As noted above, I have never seen A. foeniculum with such long flowerheads, or so densely packed. If it is a special variety we will never know since this "gardening" magazine doesn't give variety names. Unfortunately lame gardening magazines tend to "doctor up" their scenes before photographing to make their pictures prettier. Weird that BHG would put out something so lame.
remy_gw
17 years ago
Hi,
I grow a few varieties of agastache and really like them. They bloom from summer until frost, smell good, and they attract hummingbirds.
Blue Fortune may be a cultivar you would like since it resembles the pic. Check out the link below.
Remy

Here is a link that might be useful: Blue Fortune Agastache
brenda641
Original Author
17 years ago
Hello Everyone:
Thanks for all the great information. Before I posted the original question I did do some research on the net for agastache but, all of the blooms to me looked more open not as tight as the picture that is why I thought it might be buddleia. I will try to get some Blue Fortune Agastache to test in my garden.
Thanks for all the help.
Brenda
stevation
17 years ago
Seems to me there are two main families of agastaches -- one group is more woody perennials with tubular flowers, and the others are like in your photo -- they are similar to veronicas or speedwells and don't look at all like their sisters. That may be why you saw photos that didn't look like this kind. But that photo is a kind of agastache.
rusty_blackhaw
17 years ago
Agastaches, including 'Blue Fortune' (which resembles the plant in the photo (its blooms have gone by a bit in that pic)) can be cut back sharply in early to mid spring to generate a more highly branched and compact plant. Sprawling will also be less of a problem in full sun and well-drained soil without much in the way of supplemental fertilizer.
shadeyplace
17 years ago
Glad to know that because mine was sprawling all over itself last summer.
diggingthedirt
17 years ago
Careful selecting cultivars if you're shopping for seeds or seedlings; I picked up a 6 pack of an unnamed blue about 5 years ago, and I can't eradicate it. One of the reputed features of Blue Fortune is that it is non-invasive. I *really* wish I'd known about this problem before I planted the species.

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