Category: Bees

It’s Plant Of The Week time! This week’s special plant is the beautiful and exotic looking Mona Lavender.

Isn’t she pretty! Regardless of what her name says, she isn’t related to lavender. She’s called ‘Mona Lavender’ cause of the pretty, light lavender color of her flowers. Her botanical name is Plectranthus ‘Mona Lavender’, and she’s in the Lamiaceae family, which means she’s actually related to Swedish Ivy. She gets extra points for being on the Florida Friendly Plant list. Yes!

To keep ML happy in your garden she needs part shade, well drained soil, and water on a regular basis. She’s a tender semi-evergreen perennial in zones 9b – 11, meaning if it’s a normal winter she should overwinter with no problem. If we get one of the rare cold winters, then she’ll probably die and you’ll need to replace her in the spring.  No special fertilizer is needed on ML, just whichever general organic fertilizer you use. Personally, I like using Milorganite on all my garden beds.

Her pretty little flowers all perky on their upright stems repeat bloom quite frequently. The flower stems are above the foliage so from a distance it looks like a little cloud of lavender puffiness. Very pretty. Deadheading does make her look nicer and helps her to rebloom quicker. The flowers last a good while on the plant. The ones in theses pictures have been blooming for about two weeks. I’ve never tried them as cut flowers. If you have, do they do well?

ML grows to about 3′ x 3′, so give her room to mature! I planted this one in front of the Hawaiian Ti plants where she’ll fill in that whole area. She’s been in that bed less than a month but already has new growth on her. Can’t wait for her to fill in. I think the pink Ti leaves will be beautiful growing through the purple and dark green leaves of ML. Did you notice that the backsides of the leaves are dark purple! How cool.

Mona Lavender, Foxtail Ferns, Hawaiin Ti

Mona Lavender

ML does great either in containers or in the ground. She does have somewhat brittle stems, so don’t plant her where she’ll be brushed up against, like next to a walkway. Oh, and she does attract bees, which is a very good thing … unless you’re allergic to them. Here is a pic of a mature ML (how awesome is that!) and one in a container with Creeping Jenny (both pics courtesy of the internet).

Mature Mona Lavender

Mona Lavender in container

Now that you’ve learned all kinds of cool things about Mona Lavender, I’m sure you have the perfect place for her in your garden! Let me know how many you want and I can deliver, install if needed, and/or create a container garden for you. Call/text, 386-310-9969, or email, jeanni@rosesandgargoyles.com, to schedule your delivery.

Happy digging in the dirt …

Jeanni, Gibbs, and Ziva