Bee balm isn't agressive everywhere, and as a matter of fact I've been trying for the last few years just to get it going in my garden. It most certainly will produce seedling babies, and you will be fine to dig them up and move them. I would treat your lil' baby plants like any other transplant and give them some attention after transplanting until established. The seedlings are from the seeds that the parent plant dropped, and runners as Ken pointed out are shoots off of the plant itself. If you want to control where your bee balm spreads you should be fine to cut the runners, although like roses, sometimes you have to find where those runners originate from and cut them off there because I have chopped many a runner that grew right back! :) Good luck! These are one of my favorite plants!

i didnt mean aggressive as in.. it will work its way down the block .. bad choice of words for me ...

i just meant.. once established.. you can beat it back with a shovel or the truck.. and it usually wont care ...

if you are a newbie ... and want to really learn.. dig up the whole thing.. and pull it apart ... and replant it all ... as long as you dont do it in july/august ... [unless you have clay.. then you might need a little TLC]

mildew is the issue that made me move away from it .... look for resistant varieties if possible... and if yours doesnt have it.. dont worry about it ...

the seedling thing still mystifies me .... i had it at my first house for 10 years ... un-named.. never saw a seedling ever.. go figure ....

BTW.. seedlings may or may not end up being duplicates of mom .... that is left to the genetics .... but i always liked diversity of color ... so it didnt bother me ... on other plants ...

since i really had no love for the plant.. the only thing that made me keep it around.. was to show on garden tours.. that crushed leaves of monarda .. aka bergamot .. is that it is the key fragrance in earl grey tea .. go figure .. verify it.. but dried.. it probably makes a nice tea ....

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

Thanks for the info. I didn't know if severing the runners would damage the mother plant. Sounds like it is a tough plant. Last year was the first year that I tried bee balm and I loved it! Marshall's Delight, I believe. I hope it does become aggressive in the bed it is in. I will try to transplant some of the "children"!

Hey ken, you are an enabler here too?!?

I really like bee balm/monarda - I like both the smell and the flowers and the fact that it attracts bees is a plus. It has both culinary and medicinal uses and is, all in all, a great herb, but the mildew thing mentioned by ken is definitely a problem in my garden, even for the supposedly resistant types. I still grow it and continue to look for a cultivar that won't mildew.

Have fun with it, april_wine! It is a nice plant and if your bee balm hasn't had the ugly mildew problem, then you have a winner on your hands.

Holly

yes an enabler extraordinaire ... lol ...

but mostly.. i want to get newbies over the fear of it all ..

JUST DIG IT UP... and break it apart.. and replant it ... 90% of the time.. it works..

we can tell you the other plants that it wont work on ...

have no fear ...

APRIL .//... the whole point of runners.. is that they are made.. to be severed from momma ... its Gods design of that plant .... if you can find a runner.. and ease it out of the soil.. and it has a single root .... it will most likely not mind being cut off mom.. and mom will encapsulate the cut.. and move on with making a couple hundred more runners ... have no fear ...

the only caveat ... do not do it in august ... and water properly for a week or two.. to give it a head start ...

ken

Last year I planted two types of red monarda, gardenview scarlet and jacob cline. Both spread quite a bit and I will have significantly bigger and thicker patches this year. I was going to buy another small pot of gardenview scarlet to further expand the patch into an empty spot nearby, but I might be able to chop/dig up part of the expanded original patch and transplant it to the new spot. I love the red monarda. The first young hummers to arrive in July also used them quite a bit.

I chop off the runners of mine all the time because they're always invading the other plants. No problem, they do fine even when chop-chop-chopped!

I have also successfully transplanted large patches of it simply by severing the roots of the clump I want to transplant, then lifting it with about two inches of the soil beneath, and dumping it into a shallow hole. If you do it in spring and water it in well, it barely blinks.

I didn't used to love my monarda, but, as Hawkeye above states, it's a real magnet for hummingbirds and that earns it a permanent, prominent place in my garden!

Grab a shovel and go at it. You won't kill bee balm. The thing I love about this plant is that it attracts hummingbirds. They work well in the right situation, but you need to control them in tight spots. The other thing I love about monarda is that you can share them with friends...who can share them with friends...who can share them with friends... ;o)

Yeah, I had to completely remove bee balm that I had planted in the middle of my garden. I figured the bees would be very helpful. Yes, except the bees were so thick I had to harvest the garden at night. So I dug them up rather brutally in the middle of summer and left them sitting on the ground a few days before I spied a spot away from my regular activity ares. I ripped them apart and shoved them in poor holes (hey, I was BUSY). They are thriving, the bees are happy, and I'm happy!

I am wanting to cut mine back more this year, to kind of control them. How much and how often can I so this? Some of them are already about 10 inches high.

There's a wonderful book to get called "The Well TEnded Perennial Garden: Planting and Pruning Techniques" by Tracey Desabto Aust.

She used (uses) her own garden to experiment with timing pruning, pinching, dividing perennials to.... and what the results will be.

jUst to whet your curiosity I'll mention a few things. However, I suggest you buy this book. Over the years it has been one of the most recommended books on perennials on GW.
"Cut back once or twice before flowering to encourage compact growth and delayed flowering. Plants cut back 1/2 in early May when about 12 tall will flower about 1.5 to 2 weeks later than unpruned plants,
If plants pruned in early look spindly by mid may, cutting back again by 1/3 can delay flowering about 3 weeks and reduce height to 2.5 feet.
There may be fewer flowers on twice pruned plants, but you will probably get fresh flowers in August, instead on none."

I'll add that I keep on top of the deadheading. First the faded flowers are really kind of ugly and def. detract from the garden.

Second, the \plant sends out new flower buds and foliage in the leaf axils of the flower stems. You can see them cominng right along on the growing plant. So you will get two smaller flowers to replace the one you removed.

When you dead head, cut the flower stem right close to main stem. Leave no stubs....ugly.

If all the foliage gets mildewy cut back to where the leaves are unaffected.

Get the book and have fun!

She also suggests planting them singularly rather than in groups instead of in groups. She has more ....

idabean/marie

Ken is there anything I can do for the mildew?

....sniff....I'm not Ken, but I can suggest a couple of things: first, mildew resistent varieties; second, good spacing=good air circulation= less mildew;third, turn a blind eye unless the plant is melting into a white-gray mess.

Some people use a home made spray but I don't know anything about it.

I don't think mildew is worth big guns purchased for the specific purpose.

Marie

I love my been balm! I get to see hummingbirds enjoying the nectar from May until August. I don't have mildew problems though! Must be the great Wisconsin weather.

I love my bee balm too. It has spread from a single stem that stowed away here in a clump of phlox of the same purple color, and now it has spread and multiplied. I'm not sure if it has spread from seeds (because I never deadhead it) or from roots, perhaps both. It has a nice smell and attracts all sorts of pollinators from bees to hummingbirds to hummingbird moths. I have toyed with the idea of adding some red bee balm to my gardens, but fear I might bring in mildew or some other blight that could damage my purple variety, so I've opted not to mess with a good thing. If bee balm likes your particular patch of earth, it will prove very hardy.