06/20/2026
If you have been to the nursery and have asked me what to plant, I have most likely told you mint. I love these plants. Great structure, visual appeal, NOT thugs of the garden as people often think and the pollinators LOVE them.
We carry clustered, hairy, narrow and hoary. Every garden should contain mountain mints! The pollinators will thank you!
The plant that out-drew every other. An unshowy native beat the whole bed for pollinators.
She doesn't look like much. No big colorful petals — just flat little clusters of tiny pale flowers sitting on silvery, dusty-looking leaves near the top of the stem. You'd walk right past her. The pollinators won't.
In multi-year trials comparing dozens of native plants, clustered mountain mint pulled in more kinds of pollinators — and more total visitors — than any other species tested.
Stand beside a flowering stand on a warm afternoon and you hear it before you can sort it: an audible hum. Bees of every size, wasps, hoverflies, butterflies, skippers, beetles — a whole working crowd, all on a plant whose flowers are almost too small to notice.
🌿 The silvery dusting isn't on the petals. Those are bracts — specialized leaves sitting under the flowers — frosted with fine white hairs that keep the show going for weeks after the individual blooms fade.
She asks for almost nothing. Square mint-family stems, a sharp scent that deer and rabbits avoid, and a habit of spreading once she's happy where you put her.
The flashiest flower in the bed isn't the one doing the most work.
The quiet silver one in the corner is feeding the whole neighborhood 🌱
