Your Home, Garden and Travel

Before the lavender blooms steal the show, the fresh gold leaves of Agastache 'Golden Jubliee' shine in the garden. Plant it beside burgundy foliage, such as crepe myrtle 'White Chocolate' and the display is stellar. The intensity of foliage color for both plants is more intense in spring.

The agastache foliage also provides a great backdrop for the spring-blooming salvias—'May Night', 'Marcus', 'Rose Queen' or 'Caradonna'—as well as with allium 'Purple Sensation'.

In summer, the bottlebrush blooms of 'Golden Jubilee' complement other shapes, such as the blue globe thistle (echinops 'Ritro') or the annual spider flower (cleome). I like to mix Jubilee with different agastache varieties, including 'Salmon and Pink', 'Summer Sky' and 'Heather Queen'.

Jubilee is an agastache for cooler climates, rated for zones 5 through 9 and is not as sensitive to wet winters as other varieties. The narrow size of 18-24 inches wide can fit into tight spaces in the garden. The height varies between 24-36 inches. Agastache 'Golden Jubilee' can be grown from seeds, but I haven't noticed any seedlings and I didn't collect seeds last fall.

I count on agastache for deer and rabbit resistance as well as low water and low maintenance requirements. In my garden, agastache ranks high as a reliable perennial with a long bloom season.

Words and photos by Freda Cameron, Defining Your Home, Garden and Travel. All company or product or patented names mentioned are registered trademarks/copyrights/patents owned by those respective companies or persons.