Hairy Mountain Mint
Pycnanthemum pilosum verticillatum
Silver-white summer blooms alive with bees, wasps, and butterflies over fragrant pale foliage. Robust to three feet, fills in as a mass.
Typically 1 pint–1 gal · $9–$30 · final price at pickup
- Thu, Aug 138 AM – 4 PM
- Fri, Aug 148 AM – 4 PM
- Sat, Aug 158 AM – 2 PM
No native perennial attracts more pollinator diversity per square foot when it's in bloom.
Walk past a patch of mountain mint on a hot July afternoon and you will stop. The minty fragrance hits before you see the flowers: sharp, clean, and distinctly cooling. Hairy mountain mint covers its white flower clusters with tiny blooms that seem to glow silver-white against the pale, hairy foliage. On sunny days, the plants are alive with insects: bees of every kind, wasps, butterflies, beetles, all feeding together in an open pollinator convention. The hairy variety grows slightly more robust and upright than some of its relatives, topping out around three feet with a spreading habit that fills in beautifully as a mass planting. The foliage stays fragrant and attractive all season. Few native plants can match the sheer density of pollinator activity mountain mint produces during its bloom period.
A nursery-grown plant, ready for the ground.
Healthy, container-grown hairy mountain mint propagated on-site at Hill House from regional genetics. Includes a one-page care card. We make every effort to supply plants as listed; occasionally we substitute a similar species of equal value.
Plant hairy mountain mint instead of Spearmint (Mentha spicata) in garden beds. Same job in the garden, without the spread.
- Sun
- Full sun
- Water
- Average
- Mature size
- 2–3 ft · 18–24 in wide
- Bloom time
- July–September
- USDA zones
- 4–8
- Family
- Lamiaceae
- Native range
- Eastern and central United States from New England south to the Carolinas and west to Missouri
Care notes for hairy mountain mint.
Full sun in average to dry soil. Spreads by rhizome and can colonize an area over several years. plant where you want it to spread, or contain with edging. Cut back hard in early spring. Deer rarely touch it, thanks to the strong fragrance.
Pairs well with these.
Same light, same soil, same wildlife. Janet's picks to plant alongside hairy mountain mint.
Or skip the guesswork.
Curated packages bundle complementary species for an instant habitat. One reservation, one pickup day, a printed layout map.
Short on Space Package
For gardeners who have an abundance of passion but are short on space, this package features tidy, upright, clump-forming natives that behave and function well in small spaces.
Shade Bed Package
Ferns, sedges, and woodland natives that thrive under existing trees.
Birder’s Paradise Package
For the avid bird watchers and budding ornithologists in our community, the Birder’s Paradise Package consists of species that Hill House Nursery staff and longtime native plant advocates such as Doug Tallamy consider ‘premier bird garden plants’.