Beautiful Bergamot
A gift in the garden, this herbaceous plant’s aromatic leaves and flowers are used in cooking, to flavour tea and attract nectar-loving birds and insects.
Bergamot (Monarda didyma)
This lovely and unusual herbaceous perennial is indigenous to, and grows wild in, the United States. The botanical name Monarda comes from Dr Nicolas Monardes who published the first book written about the flora of the Americas with the delightful title Joyfull Newes Out of the Newe Founde Worlde in 1574. Bergamot grows from a creeping rootstock that in mid-spring sends up square 60cm stems with oval leaves; by mid-summer these are topped by large striking whorled flower heads that are made up of many honeysucklelike flowers. These nectar-rich flowers are magnets to nectar-loving birds and insects such as bees, lacewings and hoverflies and gives rise to another common name, bee balm.
Red is the most common flower colour but there are varieties that range from pale pink through to purple and white. M. fistulosa, wild bergamot, is very similar to M. didyma but has fewer flowers and the bracts are tinted purple-pink. M. citriodora, lemon bergamot, is also similar except that the leaves are narrower, serrated and lemon scented and the flowers white or pink, dotted with purple. There are other annual, biennial and perennial bergamot cultivars, all sharing some common features. Plants can be tucked into a perennial border, grown under deciduous trees, and by choosing complimentary colours will look fabulous grown beneath standard or climbing roses. They also grow well in pots that can be placed strategically to highlight the flowers.
Bergamots are best grown by purchasing plants or by dividing the roots of an existing plant in early spring. It likes cool climates and a humus-rich soil with plenty of water during hot periods. Grow plants in a position with morning sun and afternoon summer shade and mulch during the summer to keep soil moist. Conversely, plants don’t like to be too wet during winter dormancy, and in very cold regions will need protection from heavy frosts. Add compost to the soil surrounding the clump each year to provide organic matter and nutrients, but otherwise plants don’t need heavy feeding. Cut the whole plant back close to the ground in late autumn and dig up, divide and replant every 3–4 years or clumps will start to die back from the middle.
The aromatic leaves are similar in scent to that of the bergamot orange, Citrus bergamia, (the source of bergamot oil used to flavour Earl Grey tea) and hence the name most commonly used in Australia, bergamot. In the US bergamot’s often called Oswego tea because it was used as such by the Oswego Native Americans. They introduced the early Shaker communities to the tea, at the time of the Boston Tea Party, when black tea was unobtainable. If making a cup of ordinary black tea, try adding 3–4 leaves to the pot to make your own Earl Grey-flavoured tea.
Both flowers and leaves are used medicinally, made into a delicious tea and drunk to ease the symptoms of a cold or flu, to reduce fever, to help with relaxation and ease tension. It is strongly antiseptic too and can be used as a mouthwash. As with other plants in the mint family (Lamiaceae) it’s better not to use this plant medicinally if pregnant. In cooking, the fresh minty lemon flavour of bergamot combines well with fruit, the flowers are delicious in fruit salad, and if leaves are added during the cooking of fatty or oily meat or fish, they help to reduce the fattiness.
Beautiful and useful, bergamot is well worth the effort of finding the right place for it in the garden, and nurturing it during hot, dry periods.
Penny Woodward
