Mint Plants With Lavender Spike Flowers

Lemon Mint

• Lemon mint is an invasive plant sometimes called purple horsemint or lemon beebalm. It has large distinctive purple spiked flowers that are irresistible to bees and hummingbirds. You can find it growing in open fields and prairies and along roadsides from Florida to California and as far north as Nebraska. The plant tends to blanket an area densely when in bloom and creates an attractive carpet of purple flowers against its deep green leaves. Lemon mint smells like citrus when it is crushed but late in the summer season the plant gives off an odor that more closely resembles oregano. If you eat or drink something made with "lemon mint," you are more likely to be tasting a different mint plant extract, like a spearmint, mixed with lemon juice.

Horsemint

• Nettle-leaf horsemint or nettle-leaf giant hyssop grows in British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California and as far east as Montana and Colorado. It has lavender to pink flowers in tight circles on spikes that are slightly longer than an inch. The plant grows in open wooded areas and likes full sun to partial shade. It is a perennial and flowers from June to August. Its botanical name, Agastache urticifolia, is derived from the Greek and describes the distinctive flowers.

Common Bitter Mint

• The common bitter mint, also known as the tropical bush-mint, is a native of the Caribbean and South America that now grows in open, wet areas in the Southeastern United States. It prefers full sun but will grow in partial shade. The plant adapts readily to habitats throughout Florida and has been found as far north as Virginia. Bitter mint self-seeds so it spreads easily and is a well-established perennial invasive plant. It has an unpleasant scent, although butterflies, bees and birds eagerly feed on the seeds and nectar. The flowers are tiny tubular blooms, pale lavender with splotches of white, that grow in tight whorls on spikes at the tips of the branches.

Licorice Mint

• Licorice mint is also called lavender hyssop or anise hyssop. The plant is a native Midwestern U.S. perennial that was used by Native American tribes as a medicinal tea. It is a beautiful and aromatic mint with vivid lavender-blue flower spikes that look wonderful dried or in floral arrangements and are equally attractive to bees, butterflies, birds and wild rabbits but not to deer. The nectar makes a delicious honey. Both the leaves and flowers are edible and can be steeped for a licorice-tasting tea or added to salads for a sharp anise note. Licorice mint's many medicinal uses include an infusion for chest colds and coughing, a sedative and tranquilizer, a burn poultice, and an itching reliever for poison ivy. It was also used by the Cheyenne to induce sweating in sweat lodges and today is a popular garden border plant.