Welcome to the Good Growing Podcast. I am Chris Enroth, Horticulture Educator with University of Illinois Extension, coming at you from Mac Comb, Illinois, and we have got a great show for you today, the perennial plant of the year. It's gonna be an interesting, I think, perennial plant of the year, selection. We're going to talk about this one, for for this year. And you know I'm not doing this by myself.

I am joined, as always, every single week by horticulture educator Ken Johnson in Jacksonville. Hey, Ken.

Hello, Chris. You have any have any experience with this perennial plant in the year?

Of course not. So let's talk for an entire hour about this plant. Yes. Have have you, grown a, this particular perennial plant of the year?

I have not. So so I'm leading the blind.

We are obviously the authority on this. No. I I I would say as as you're you're listening, watching the show, if you've had experience with this plan or you have more to add to the conversation, please feel free. Throw that comment below in the chat. You know?

We'd we'd love to learn more about it because, I mean, I am anticipating buying it for myself and giving it a try this year. How about you, Ken?

Yeah. I may I may make the list for this year.

Mhmm. Let's see. We gotta gotta carve out quite the space for it, though, but we'll talk about that. And so but but, yeah, I guess before we get to that, Ken, everything else, going okay? I know we are, you're at home right now because it's so cold outside.

No one's allowed to leave the house. Schools are closed. And so my kids are off school, so I I'm, I guess, in years are too.

They are. Yeah. I think wind chills this morning were when I looked, it was, what, 23, 24 below, and that was after the sun came up. So I don't know what it was before that. So but it may be down here.

It it was a cold drive into the office. The, air temperature, at least in Macomb, was negative 7 on the drive in. So it it was chilly. And then the the stop signs, you can see them shimmying in the wind. You know it's windy and cold once you see that happening.

Yeah. I got to the office. All of our water pipes are frozen. So, yeah. If you if you see me run outside real quick, you'll know why.

So it's 2 o'clock right now on 21st, and it is one degree in Jacksonville. So it feels like 15 0.

Yeah. Oh, gosh. Well, yes. It it is mighty cold out there. Our the furnace here at the office is kind of running nonstop, barely able to keep up.

So it would be a good day to kinda hole up at at home. I wish I was back home right now.

It's good enough.

Yeah. So I I guess maybe one question that I I actually already got one today. Someone did ask, we don't have any snow cover on the ground. What does a deep freeze like this mean for something like our soil dwelling insects, things like Japanese beetle grubs and things like that? Does that mean are we gonna be seeing potentially fewer of them next year because of the the frost depth?

Probably not. It hasn't it's not getting really cold real long. I think tomorrow, it's supposed to warm back up into the into the twenties and stuff. So say probably not here in Jacksonville, we still have depending on the sun exposure, we still have a decent amount of snow. Okay.

In a lot of way, like, our front yard is north facing, so it's all covered in snow. Backyard, we've got patches of baregrass, but there's still a decent amount of snow cover, which is gonna still potentially. But even then, I try and remember off time I had Japanese beetles. I mean, they get out into the twenties. And I'm not sure how cold soil temperatures have gotten, but it's not gonna be this, you know, bitter cold for terribly long.

Like like it was when was that last year around Christmas and then We had

a cold snap in February and then, yeah, Christmas was real cold.

What was it? Polar vortex was at 2014? 2014. Really cold temperatures for multiple days. Mhmm.

But we have snow then. So Yeah. Well Wait and see.

We will wait and see. Again, Japanese beetles, things like they have not been a big issue in my neck of the woods for a couple of years now. So we're not I I think population levels hopefully have leveled out a little bit. You know, they're gonna go up and down, up and down, but but leveled out for the most part.

Yeah. It's been several years since I've gotten a a Japanese beetle question. Yeah. Jacksonville. Well, we don't grow a lot that they're attracted to, but other than like sweet corn, I'd only see a few here and there.

Yeah. Yeah. Well so folks, bundle up. It's, we're just getting started with winter. I feel like, and I'm so excited.

It's so much fun. Yeah. Like wearing sweaters and stuff. So, this is my time of year until I'm sick of it, which will be about mid February. Well, I can probably no reason to put this off any longer.

The, the 2025 perennial plant of the year. Again, it's one that we're not quite familiar with, but I am familiar with the this group of plants. And the one that the Perennial Plant Association has selected this year is the clustered mountain mint. Now the scientific name for that is pecanthamum muticum. Now hopefully, it's all being pronounced correctly.

Again, we we read these a lot, but we say them out loud not as frequently. So I think we're saying it correctly. Pecanthamum. Yeah.

So yeah. If not, people let us know. And then so pecanthamum, looking that up, so comes from Greek. So pycnos, meaning dense or tight or close packed. And then anthos is flower.

So it's got this really tight cluster of flowers, fadgenus. That's how they get their name. And was muticum, was that blunt?

Yes. The blood or the because another name for it is short toothed. It kinda has these, like, I describe them as stubby leaves. I don't know how how else to describe them. But but yeah.

Mhmm.

I think they're they're more ovate than than the other species of the Canthemum. So

Yeah. So but in particular, the clustered mountain mint, it's one that that I have not grown as much. When I look at the the map distributions, kind of that that native habitat range for this plant, There are no recorded observations in my part of Illinois, like McDonough County, but a lot of the texts say that it is native to Illinois. So why is it not listed in in maybe my particular county? Probably because no one's looking for it.

That that's a a very good reason. You know, we know that with a lot of invasive species, as an example, are here. Some I found in my own backyard. But when I go online to look at the invasive species maps, McDonough County is not listed on there. So, you know, I could probably be a a good, reporting citizen scientist and and say, hey.

Actually, bush honeysuckle is definitely in McDonough County. But I think it it might be that or it might be, multiflora rose or autumn olive, a very common invasive shrub. McDonough County is blank on, but, oh, I definitely know it's here.

Yeah. A lot of those range maps, you can tell where the universities are. Because those are the counties that have this stuff, whether it's invasives or native plants like this. You can tell where the kinda where the people doing the research are and reporting stuff. Because I think yeah.

You look at that map, at least the map I looked at, I think Champaign County is highlighted. I guess, Saint Louis, not necessarily in Illinois. I don't know. Maybe Quad Cities. Those are the only ones in Illinois that have have it reported.

So

Yes. You you could make so many, conclusions from from those maps, from that type of data. You could say that, universities seem to attract invasive plants or they seem to attract biological diversity. That this truly is there's just more people there looking for stuff. So that's why usually a lot of these distribution maps have more data, around, kinda higher ed learning institutes.

I think we should talk about what it looks like.

Okay. Yes. That that would be a good one. What is this plant? What does it look like?

So when it gets, was it 2, 4 feet tall? Mhmm. Again, it's got these, cluster flowers when it starts to bloom. So bloom time, from what I've seen, it's July to September time frame. Again, your mileage may vary on that depending on where you're at.

But kind of a later summer, in the fall blooming period. It is a perennial. It is a mint, so it's in the mint family, because of this. So it's not true mints like our spearmint and all of that stuff, but it is in the mint family. And like a lot of mints, it can be aggressive.

Maybe not as aggressive as as some of those true mints, but it will spread, readily. So this is something if you're planting, a lot of the recommendations are in the spring, just go around and with the spade and cut off those spread by rhizomes. So cut those off if you wanna kinda contain it or reduce that spread a little bit. 2 to 4, 1 to 3 feet tall. Spread is about the same.

So get decent size, but shouldn't necessarily swallow, your landscape like some plants. And then when it does bloom, it has these silvery bracts underneath the flower. So I've I've seen descriptions of it. It looks kinda like it's been, like a light snow cover on there. To me, it looks like powdery mildew.

But that's just where It

really does.

That's just where my brain goes. So, so so the the bracts can be you know, has this has a silvery appearance, ornamental appearance, and then has these white, to to pinkish white flowers that'll produce on those.

These tubular shaped kind of flowers that that kinda come out on this head. And you had mentioned, Ken, before that, well, before we started recording that it meant mint family, not true mint, but also related to maybe more closely, to bergamot or bee balm. That's what the flowers kind of remind me of a little bit. Those those bergamot bee balm flower heads. It's, like, tight clusters of of flowers that'll open up.

And kind of a a miniature version Yeah. Of that.

So you mentioned spreads, just like a like a typical mint does, by rhizomes. And so when planting this one, a few locations might wanna consider. I I would say regardless of, like, where at, most certainly wanna make sure that it does have room to spread and move and also interplant with other competitive plants. Something like, purple coneflower would be a good option if you like interplant with this one. Purple coneflower is another one that will spread and move around.

Maybe some of our grasses, some of our bunch of growing grasses, which can kind of contain it and kinda halt its spread going to one direction. Heck, I you might even throw goldenrod in theirs. That not Canada goldenrod. I I like can Canadian goldenrod, but, there's a lot of other species out there that that maybe aren't as aggressive, but might be able to hold their own against, the the mountain men.

Yeah. Or some of the asters maybe.

Yeah. Because that would be another good one. Mhmm.

I think it's fair to mention. So the the growth habit is is kind of upright. So and it would it's full sun. It can take, part shade. It likes kinda consistently moist but not wet soils.

And I was reading, an Allan Armitage is that one set of us. Herbaceous perennial plants. He was growing one, not the same species, but, I see. It's it's growing in full sun. And fortunately, the garden became shadier.

The plants became leggier leggier and toppled by midsummer, creating a green hairball of absolutely no value. So if you get too much shade, sounds like they will start to flop, and then they won't have that nice upright, with more compact growth on them.

The Perennial Plant Association, because they've selected this plant, they do have kind of like a dedicated website with, like, all of the the characteristics, maybe other pairings that you could, plant this particular one with, and we can definitely make sure that that people are linked to that down below in the show notes. I I would say that in line with Ken, the the one thing that they do mention in on their website, like, oh, this would be a a really good edging plant. But again, if you get too much shade, that edging plant is going to flop over into your walkway. So make sure there's good sun. But I think it would look great as a as a mass planting, maybe even containing, like, some other pollinator garden plantings.

And so, yeah, so you can cluster this as as, like, a large grouping of planting with a a couple smaller, other pollinator plants or grasses poking through, through, like, this a a massed clustered mountain mint.

Yeah. I think he mentions Armitage in his book, Chicago Botanic Garden, at least as when he wrote this, has got a big planting of it. But he says, grasses along with goldenrod and coneflowers are alone worth the price of admission. So don't know if that still exists, but may have to find out this summer. There you go.

Yeah.

If only I had meadows and prairies, of space to put plants in, I could create some stunning, works of art, like the Lurie Garden up in Chicago also, with their Salvia River. Well, Kent, I I you know, again, I'm I'm kind of I am stuck a little bit on this expansion of this plant, which makes me a little bit nervous. I I do have a pollinator garden, though, that has things like, ironweed. We have a couple different we have a different silphiums from compass plant. We have prairie dock.

I also have Joe Pye weed in there. We got, let's see. Well, I just I planted coneflower. We got black eyed Susan. I feel like this plant would work well in there.

I feel like that would be a good community of plants for it to be in. And I'm also tempted maybe to put it more on its own and more of a conventional landscape planting, you know, where it's all surrounded by mulch, you know, little meatballs in the in the the mulch planting, in an effort to kind of cover up more space. So, you know, I think that would be a strategy for me. 1, I could interplant it a bit more densely in a pollinator garden, but maybe also put it out a little bit farther away from the house and allow it to fill in a larger space. More of

a ground cover. Like Yeah. A tall ground cover.

Yeah. That's what I'm thinking. And and I am a little bit hesitant sometimes just to knowing that, you know, when when people plant aggressive plants, they wind up sometimes having a bad experience. So, I I think it's just something to be mindful of. I just wanna make sure people are aware that it it is going to spread.

So you can use a shovel to kind of chop up the edges, dig it up, divide it. Not only will that make it smaller, control the growth, it can rejuvenate it and allow the plant to maybe flush out with a bit more healthier, growth pattern the next following year. But again, if you're not that kind of gardener, if you don't wanna do that, then, just plant it in a spot where you got lots of room for it to grow.

So with, the perennial plant association, you know, the reason I picked these is because it, you know, it can grow over a wide range. It's relatively problem free. What are some of the other things they talk about?

They it is deer and rabbit resistant. So if if you have an issue with, 4 legged stomachs, they the the the aromatics in the plant, make it less desirable to any browsing animal out there in the wild. So, so you you will not see as as much herbivory or any browsing.

Yes. Good segue. Speaking of, scents. So all of these these mountain mints have different smells to them. So, with this one, cluster and mountain mint is it's kind of a a minty smell.

But I did find a paper, it was actually published last October, where they looked at the different odorants, that are responsible for the the, aroma. And we can put a put the title of the publication in the notes, but it's characterization of odorants in clustered mountain mint, bacanthium uticum. So they were using and I don't know what most of the stuff is, solvent assisted flavor evaporation or safe, gas chromatography olfactometry, g c o, and gas chromatography mass spectromity mass mass spectrometry, to do this. And they what do they find? Well, it was, like, 40 different chemicals or something like that.

But several noteworthy odorants with an OAV or odor activity values of over greater or equal to 1. I'm assuming that more the higher it is, the the more of a smell you get from it. They had stuff that was minty, mushroom, coconut, eucalyptus, mint and coconut, mint, pine, and mint. So and, yeah, if you if you wanna go down our our rabbit hole and learn about the different chemicals that are in this, somebody's looked at it, and and you can you can do that. So put a minty smell to these.

In in the end, smells like mint. Yes. But, yes, I won't put a lot of work into a plant that not many people know about. They're trying to get a perfume label out of this or something, you know, or make some kinda good smelling air freshener or add this to the next house cleaning detergent. I don't know.

So I was gonna say, these findings lay the foundation for future investigations into the diversity of pemudigum selections and can provide valuable insights for studies on plant hybridization for food and flavor applications.

I know with, the mountain mints that I'm more familiar with, the ones that are a bit more common here in Illinois, you know, I I will go and I'll grab them, and I'll, like, rub them in my hands, and I'll sniff them. They they also have kind of a minty minty smell to them as well. The ones in in our neck of the woods that I'm more familiar with so if folks have seen these, they might know a bit more better. Probably the most common one out there has has a very creative name. It's called common, mountain mint.

I think also American mountain mint is a synonym of it. And so that that is you'll find that throughout Illinois. The one that ice I deal with most often, I have a little spot where I take a botany class to in the fall, is a slender mountain mint. That's Picanthimum 10ufolium. And that is a very interesting species as well.

And that in this one spot that we've gone to a couple years in a row, I've seen the mountain mint expand, and it's really crowded out some of the the native grasses. And but as it has expanded, its density has lessened, and now more forbs are coming in kind of behind like, filling in this this area, but there's fewer grasses. So, yeah, I I think it's a pretty neat plant to see in the wild, 10ufolium, which is the one I'm familiar with. You know? And I'm sure, muticum has, you know, similar characteristics to it.

But in line of that, the not only, like like, the plant diversity that seems to occur in this space is really it's different, than a lot of things. This is happening naturally. This is there is burning that occurs there, but it's it's nothing is influencing it other than a human lighting it on fire every few years. But at other spots where there's not mountain mint, this is not happening. So So there's a lot of plant diversity happening, but can mountain mint in general, muticum being one of them, these are magnets for insects.

Like like insects love these plants as pollinators and and beneficial insects. So, you know, what what can you tell us more about the insect attractiveness of this plant?

Yeah. So there's a a lot of different insects, that are gonna go to. And so I came across a couple papers. I looked specifically at, muticum or included that in there. One of them so this was assessing pollinator richness in urban grown mountain mint population.

So this one was in Virginia, looking at, sites, in more urban areas. So it was just in in the Richmond area. They were looking at, clustered mountain mint, and slender mountain mint. And they were looking at, the the species richness, so how many different species are you seeing? Not necessarily pure numbers.

You know, we saw 10,000 on this. 10,000 individuals, but just the the kind of the diversity, how many different species are visiting, these plants. So for in this particular study, for cluster mountain mint, they found, 85 different taxa, so 85, species or per genera, and then 43 on on the southern mountain mint. And with that, let me find that table. So 17 so on on the the slender, 25% of those were bees, 17%, for the the clustered.

For, wasps made up 25% of the slender and, 29% of the clustered, and they grouped all the others, together. Butterflies, beetles, flies, all that, they made up 50 54%. So about half of the the insects visiting are bees and wasps, and then everything else. So a lot of different things coming there. Different times of the year, you've got different things coming in because these are can be long bloomed or have a long bloom season.

I think for this one for the slunder, they only looked at it for 3 weeks because the bloom started to decline. But the cluster, they looked at it for 7 weeks. And and you can see in the paper, they've got tables where, you know, they're they're kinda looking at it by by species. You've got some of them moving in early and then falling off or coming in later. Some of them there the whole time.

So but but a lot of different things are are utilizing these, as a food source. And then there was another one I came across. Various a variation of insect richness and 6 gray plant species, and this was in Louisiana. But they were looking at a, a patch that had what was it? Brazilian vervian, which is an invasive species in in some parts of the country.

Rattlesnake master, rosin weed, Texas cone flower, wild bergamot, and, clustered or blunt mountain mint. Out of all of those, they had 75 different taxa visiting the 1 mountain mint. So there's more than any any other types. So others were others were close, but there the mountain men had more different species going to it, than all the than all the others. Not necessarily the most, they didn't look at that, but just the diversity.

So they're they're good for drawing in a lot of different things. So if you're interested in, you know, a good plant for pollinators, this would fit that bill.

And I think also with that that bloom time being most of the summer, at least for slender or not slender, for, the clustered mountain mint, You know, we're we're looking at most of the summer months that will be blooming a lot of times up until frost, but deadheading it can encourage a new growth of blooms. And so so folks can do that. I know sometimes people like, oh, I wanna leave the the seed heads on for, you know, winter interest or or habitat. If you do it early enough or maybe midsummer, you will get a new flush of of flower buds that will open up by the time we get into late summer, early fall time frame. And that would allow you to maybe have some some good seasonality to this.

So, you know, as we transition from summer into fall and then into winter, you know, as we think about right now, the dark side of the gardening season, their mountain mint, and and and, again, I'm I'm looking thinking more about some of what I've seen with that, the clustered mountain mint, on online, the seasonality appeal to it. You know, hopefully, it it would have a really interesting seed head for the the winter months. And then yeah. And and be a refuge place for insects. Birds could use some of that material and debris.

So, yeah, I I think it would be a good seasonal plant. Multi multi season interest.

And with the bird snapper, you're drowning lots of pollinators. A lot of birds eat insects. So you got that. A whole circle there if you've got it.

Ferennial Plant Association, again, announced cluster development as our 2025 plant of the year. You know, it it might not be this will be one that you could probably find, let me say, like, a native plant nursery, which are becoming more and more common to see here in Illinois. But it might not be as common in a large scale retail nursery, so it might be a bit more difficult to find. So that that's something to be mindful, but there are other mountain mints out there that are also part of the landscape trade. You know, we mentioned pecanthum tinufolium, that's slender mountain mint, that that you can sometimes find that in native plant nurseries.

Common mountain mint, virginiatum, that's another one that that would probably be able to find at a native plant nursery. And then there's pecanthum and canum, which is kinda hoary mountain mint or, let's see. Was that oh, that that's Pelosum. There's there's a couple of them. They're hung together in your head.

I think Hori is your fuzzy one if you wanna feel 1.

Yes. That's the that's the fuzzy one that I wanna I wanna grab and take a nap under. So yes. Yeah. Hore Mountain Mint, it would be another one with, that that different leaf color to it that could add additional, landscape interest.

Yeah. I think, yeah, depending on where you read or what you read, there's 20, 21 species of them. And these these 4 are kind of the when at least on the Internet, when you look around, those are kind of the 4 that you most commonly see, available. I think they have different fragrances too. I saw some of the Slender was, mint with the anti grass.

Mhmm. And then the common was a lemony or citronella mint scents. So just like your regular mints, you get all kinds of different smells too.

Yep. Yeah. And that would make sense too. Yeah. I remember, you know, you grab the that Slender Mountain Mint and be like, there you can pick up mint to it, but it also just smells like dried leaves.

You know? So it, yeah, it's not not as strong as, like, you know, grabbing a handful of spearmint and just like, woah. Yeah. Well, that was a lot of great information about the 2025 perennial plant of the year, clustered mountain mint, pecanthamum muticum. So I'll get to know that one this year.

You know? I that that's why I like some of these these like, the perennial plant association, their plant of the year, the all American selections. Like, I like being able to look at these and and and knowing that they've been trialed, and it's not just me on a whim at a garden center. Like, that's pretty. I like that.

And without any thought or research, I grab that plant off the shelf. It could be good. It could be bad. But, hey, someone out there has done the research here on, that, clustered mountain mint, and they this is gonna be a plant that might not work for every landscape, but I'm gonna try it in mind, and, yeah, I'll report back, and we'll see how it goes back in 2026. Oh my gosh.

We're gonna look that far ahead already?

Yeah. I think these things, you know, you know, I've heard of mountain mint, but it's never really when I've been looking at plants, it's never really anything that I've thought about. But, you know, maybe not probably will now just because of learning about it and and reading more into it. Or I probably wouldn't have done that if it wasn't planted in the air.

Yeah. To me, it's always been like a wild plant. You know? It's it's like more wild than maybe I would have been comfortable put it in my yard. But I got some crazy stuff in there already, so I don't know why I would even think that.

I'm looking at you Zig Zag Goldenrod. You're spreading all over the place, but I do love it. It's beautiful in the fall.

You can plant it with some northern sea oats.

Oh, yeah.

But how do you dig it out?

Yeah. I'm sure that would be great. Yeah. Nope. That's alright.

I'll try the clustered mountain mint this year. Well, the Good Growing Podcast is a production of University of Illinois Extension edited this week by me, Chris Enroth. Hey, Ken. Thank you so much. Hanging out today, learning about the 2025 Verano plant of the year, and and, you know, looking for a spot in the yard for it.

Yes. Thank you. Yeah. I think I have an idea where we could fit it in to our landscape. Mhmm.

Let's do this again next week.

Oh, we shall do this again next week. Maybe not both of us, but at least one of us will be back here because we have a good old conference next week. The Everything Local Conference where we, get together in Springfield, and we talk about our our local foods, local food systems. Heck, we even get into floriculture, flower farming. It's I mean, it is everything local, folks.

So it's it's quite the conference. So it's a lot of farmers and growers there, getting to learn and getting their winter education on. So looking forward to seeing you there, Ken.

Yes. Yeah. Get ready for some cider.

Oh, yeah. Cider contest. Oh, that's so much fun. I will I'll take it easy on the coffee that morning. Well, listeners, thank you for doing what you do best, and that is listening.

Or if you're watching us on YouTube watching. And as always, keep on growing.