Our red bee balm river is cresting in scented waves and it has attracted the first monarch butterfly that we’ve seen this year. I haven’t seen any monarchs or monarch eggs on milkweed yet, but now I have some confidence that they will come like late baseball players.
Bee balm, also called monarda, is a native North American plant. It looks good, smells good, attracts all sorts of pollinaters (including hummingbirds) and is generally deer-resistant.
The plant is part of the mint family and many people consume its flowers and leaves as salads and garnishes or in tea. After the Boston Tea Party, many rebelling colonists switched to “Oswego Tea” made of bee balm by Native Americans to avoid the imported and taxed British tea.
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 15, 2025.)