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Next time you're bebopping around your garden, find a place for bee balm. You'd swear Dr. Seuss drew it into your landscape, just for a touch of whimsy. 

Bee balm, or Monarda, is one of those unappreciated flowers. Bees and hummingbirds certainly make a fuss over it, and Danielle Ferguson thinks we should, too. 

"I love how long it flowers," she says. "You get such a long season of color out of it."

Ferguson once designed gardens for Portlanders; she now owns Ferguson's Fragrant Nursery, which is a stone's throw from Champoeg State Park south of Portland. 

As a veteran "bee balmer," Ferguson has some good tips about growing the plant. Once considered a weed, it generally grew in just one color. Now, since plant breeders got their hands on it, you'll find the more disease-resistant flowers in red, scarlet, pink, lilac and kind of a raspberry color. The flowers, which resemble the feathers on a 1940s ladies hat, strike a pose atop strong stems that grow anywhere from 1 to 5 feet tall. 

I like it best combined with simple flowers, such as black-eyed Susan, purple coneflower or coreopsis, but it adds a very different texture growing just about anywhere in sun or part shade. 

It's a weird-looking plant with a flowery past. The name apparently comes from its old herbal use as a poultice to stop the pain of bee stings. The Oswego Indians made it into a tea, and the brewed leaves became a popular substitute after the Boston Tea Party. Some people say it has the taste of Earl Grey tea (but after steeping a cup myself, I think they're fudging the truth). 

Bee balm, Ferguson says, "is wonderfully drought-tolerant. I can plant it somewhere without water, and it will do just fine." 

Some experts describe it as invasive. Ferguson takes exception: "It spreads, but it's not like ivy. It won't climb up a tree" and choke it out, she says. 

There are good points to "spreaders." It's a great plant to use if you've got a lot of property and want tons of long-lasting flowers to cover a lot of ground quickly. 

I've never had a problem with bee balm taking up more space than I've allowed. But, as you can tell by its square stem, it's a member of the mint family, so you have to divide and conquer it every three years. 

Rest assured, though. Ferguson says it's easy to get control: "In the spring, dig out the center of the plant and replant it. Then divvy up what's left to share with friends." 

I often enjoy entering bee balm in my "garden witness relocation program," giving it a new home where it can be rediscovered as I bebop around my yard.