Agastache Sweet Lili

One of the finest perennials for the hot, summer dry Mediterranean climate areas of Australia is the hybrid Hummingbird Mint, Agastache ‘Sweet Lili’.

I used to buy seeds from Jim and Jenny Archibald who from a base in Wales set out each year to collect seeds from the wild in Southern Europe, Turkey, Iran and beyond. They also sold seeds which they collected from their own garden. Thirty or more years ago I received seed from the Archibalds of Agastache rupestris, commonly known as the licorice mint or Mexican Hyssop. Native to the mountains of Arizona, New Mexico and the nearby Mexican state of Chihuahua this species has proved to be a short lived perennial when grown in the garden.

I sowed the seeds as soon as I got them and approximately 20 seeds germinated which when large enough were planted into a trial bed in my garden. All but one of the seedlings were obviously A. rupestris. But one plant stood out. It was obviously a hybrid, most likely a cross between A. rupestris and A. aurantiaca. The latter is a native of the Chihuahua and Durango regions of Mexico.

The hybrid was such a good-looking plant that I propagated a few more and planted them out for further trials.

This second planting confirmed its beauty and utility. A myriad of tubular pink flowers with an overlay of apricot are carried on 120cm strong tall stems from late spring until late autumn. The flowers produce prodigious amounts of nectar and are visited regularly by our resident New Holland Honeyeaters. During winter we cut the plants back to ground level which is all the care they need.

For a while, two decades ago, my granddaughter Lili lived across the road from the nursery and, although only three years old at the time, would regularly trot across to spend time with me in the garden. My Agastache plant needed a name and as my granddaughter was such a joy I called it Agastache ‘Sweet Lili’.

Writing about ‘Sweet Lili’ in his book Guide to Plants, Landscape designer Paul Bangay states that “I use this in all my gardens as it is such a long-flowering plant and has a very distinct and unusual flower colour.”