My bee balm changed color!

by Cheryl
(Saratoga, NY)

I'm very confused. Last summer, my bee balm was red. Honest - I have pictures! This year when it bloomed, it was white. Is there a reason for this? My neighbor says that some of her flowers came up white this year too. ( I thought she was crazy, until it happened to me). Please tell me this happens - I want my red back!

Doug says that there is something nurserymen call "reversion" - this is where a hybrid plant variety will spontaneously change colors back to one of the parent plant colors.

Hosta are famous for doing this - as are Brunnera.

Often it happens when the plant is stressed a little - or a lot - and then wham, it somehow "changes color". That color was in the genetics but was masked by the hybridization.

So - that's my best guess.

There are of course other reasons this happens. Often gardeners think their plant changes colour but it's the seedlings that are so close to the mother plant that they can't be distinguished from it - they have a different color. When that coincides with the short-lived mother plant dying, then they think the "plant has changed color" when it fact it is only being replaced.

So there are several reasons why this happens. But basically genetic instability in hybrids or new varieties is one of the biggest reasons (and no, the nursery industry doesn't talk much about this).

Hope that helps