Hoary Mountain Mint | Pycnanthemum incanum

🌿 Ships well rooted in a 3.5 x 5 inch deep pot. Well established root system and ready to plant!

If you've grown P. muticum and loved it, meet its taller, wilder cousin. Hoary mountain mint shares the same extraordinary pollinator magnetism the genus is famous for, but brings a different look to the garden: upright, many-branched stems rising 2 to 4 feet, and as bloom time approaches, the upper leaves and bracts turn a striking silver-white that gives the whole plant a frosted, luminous quality from midsummer into fall. Small white to pale lavender flowers spotted with purple emerge from those silvery bracts in dense clusters and draw bees, butterflies, skippers, moths, and beneficial wasps in numbers that are genuinely hard to believe until you're standing next to it. It consistently appears on top-ten pollinator plant lists, and it earns the spot. The intensely minty fragrance is present throughout the plant and makes it completely deer and rabbit resistant. It spreads by rhizome and self-seeds freely, naturalizing readily into dry meadows, woodland edges, and poor soil sites where many plants struggle. Define the edges in spring or give it room to roam.

🌿 Latin Name: Pycnanthemum incanum
🌞 Light: Full sun to part shade
🌱 Soil: Well-drained, dry to medium; tolerates lean, rocky, sandy, and clay soils; adaptable and tough
💧 Water: Drought-tolerant once established; low water needs
📏 Mature Size: 2 to 4 ft tall; spreading colony by rhizome and seed
🌸 Bloom Time: July through September
🗺️ Hardiness Zone: 4 to 8
🦋 Wildlife Value: Top-ranked pollinator plant; attracts bees, butterflies, skippers, moths, and beneficial wasps; deer and rabbit resistant