Growing Anise Hyssop: A Complete Profile
By Growing Home Greens Team · July 25, 2026
Anise hyssop is a perennial herb in the mint family with a distinctive licorice-mint flavor, grown for its edible leaves and flower spikes as much as for the bees and butterflies it attracts.
Sowing and starting it
Start seed indoors about 6 weeks before your last frost date and transplant around that date. Transplanting is the preferred method, though it can also be direct-sown 1/4 inch deep in spring. Unusually for a perennial, it typically flowers in its first year, reaching harvestable size around 75-80 days from seeding. It’s hardy in zones 5-9.
Seed-grown plants are the straight species and will self-seed a bit; if you want a longer bloom season without the volunteers, buy ‘Blue Fortune’ as a plant instead, it’s sterile and won’t set seed.
Root rot in wet soil is the main risk
Anise hyssop is low-maintenance in the conditions it likes: full sun and well-drained soil. Root rot in heavy, wet soil is the main thing to watch for; it doesn’t tolerate standing water.
A permanent bee plant, not an annual rotation
As a perennial, give anise hyssop a permanent spot rather than rotating it through the annual vegetable beds, a herb border or pollinator strip suits it well, and its long bloom period makes it one of the more dependable season-long bee plants you can grow.
Sources: Anise Hyssop, Johnny’s Selected Seeds; Agastache ‘Blue Fortune’, NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox; Plants for Pollinators: Giant Hyssop, Xerces Society.
Companion planting guide for Anise Hyssop · Find your planting dates
Typically viable in USDA zones 5-9. Not sure your zone? Look it up by ZIP code.
Method: Either: Start indoors for an earlier harvest, or direct-sow outside for less fuss. Anise Hyssop tolerates either.
See exact start-indoors, direct-sow, and harvest dates for your zone →
How many Anise Hyssop plants fit per square foot?
Spacing: 1 per square foot (square-foot-gardening spacing). Mature height: 2-3 ft.
Varieties worth considering
- 'Blue Fortune' (Agastache foeniculum x A. rugosa): Sold as a nursery plant rather than seed, it's a cross between the native species and Korean Agastache rugosa, bred for a longer summer-through-fall bloom window than seed-grown plants give you. Mt. Cuba Center's pollinator trial found it drew bees and other pollinators just as well as the straight species, so you're not trading pollinator value for the extra bloom time. (source)
- 'Blue Blazes': NC State Extension's Plant Toolbox lists this as another named cultivar, purple-lavender flowers, alongside Blue Fortune and Golden Jubilee. A reasonable second seed-grown option if you want a named cultivar without the Blue Fortune cross's nursery-only availability. (source)
- 'Golden Jubilee' (avoid for pollinators): An AAS-winning cultivar with gold-chartreuse foliage that NC State also lists, but the Xerces Society explicitly warns against it for pollinator gardens: its flowers have been found to go unnoticed by bees, unlike Blue Fortune or the straight species. Grow it for the foliage color if that's the goal, not for the bees. (source)
Cited from the source shown next to each variety. We haven't grown these ourselves yet, so treat this as a research-backed starting point, not a personal endorsement.
Where to buy anise hyssop seeds
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See it growing
Search YouTube for "growing anise hyssop" videos → (a live search, not a hand-picked video; results vary and aren't vetted by us)
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Growing Anise Hyssop: A licorice-mint-flavored perennial that flowers its first year and draws pollinators all season long.
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