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Bee Balm
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this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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Nature and Gardening
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Stupid squirrels ate all the flower buds off my M. punctata. 🤦♂️
I was waiting all summer for it to bloom.
You might be able to prompt additional flowers with pruning... On M. fistulosa, didyma, and bradburiana you'd look for a double set of leaves at an internode for pruning to promote a second flowering period. I'm not versed in pruning punctata, but the images I've seen seem to suggest a similar leaf structure. It might be worth cutting back to another node to see if it works.
In the squirrels' defense, Monarda has long been regarded as medicine by many of the indigenous communities in its native range, and it's very kind of you to be providing curative foods to them. It might be small consolation but their browse would spur additional vegetative growth that will allow the plant to be even larger than it would have otherwise been, so you'll have more of it next year.
Yeah I’m basically running a squirrel grocery / pharmacy nowadays. Also serving the needs of the local slug population.
Oh no! I had no idea they like these. We've got squirrels everywhere, but thankfully they've left our stuff alone.
I’m starting to think the squirrels around here are a bit deranged. They also ate all of the echinacea flowers, and every single hot pepper I grew this year.