Toni, you said it! Your photos are gorgeous too. I just LOVE agastaches.

Oh, I wish my phone would catch on to how to spell it from voice to text! I get all kinds of crazy spellings.

We've never tried growing them here in Zone 4b -- but if the smell like root beer, maybe we should look into it. There are ways of making non-alcoholic beer with roots -- used to be everyone made their own until we were convinced by advertising that we weren't smart enough to make our own food... It would be interesting to see if an agastache root concoction could be used for brewing. And of course regular ale and beer as well...

MotherRaphaela - Maybe if you mulched them heavily they'd survive? I'm not sure how they'd like the long-term extreme cold of NY. I don't know where your monastery is exactly (haven't been to that part of NY, looks like you're in central NY), but I doubt I would have been able to grow them when I lived in Watertown (hour north of Syracuse).

Maybe you could add them to your kvass recipe, Mother Raphaela. (I'm assuming that any community of Russian nuns makes kvass. ) My grandmother made delicious kvass out of black bread and white raisins, and she occasionally added various roots and berries to enhance the taste.

Zuzu, I do know what Kvass is and yes, I've learned to make it. Some of it is pretty nasty stuff and some is more than decent.

However, my brewing background is totally catholic (if you set aside my Methodist grandparents from Kansas...) I've been reading a book: "Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers: The Secrets of Ancient Fermentation" Paperback – September 18, 1998 by Stephen Harrod Buhner (Author) and it's blown me out of the water! MR

Greetings, I have purchased 6 agastaches from www.highcountrygarden.com, they arrived in great shape and I am really forward to seeing them grow and see all the hummingbirds.