Betony ‘Hummelo’
* Common name: Betony ‘Hummelo’ 
* Botanical name: Stachys officinalis or Stachys monieri ‘Hummelo’
* What it is: Cousin to the better known lamb’s ears with their fuzzy gray leaves, this perennial has green leaves with salvia-like flower spikes of rosy-lavender from late spring through much of summer. It’s easy to grow, long-blooming, and deer don’t like it.
* Size: Leaf clusters grow 12 to 15 inches but flower spikes poke up to nearly 2 feet tall. Space 2 feet apart.
* Where to use: Ideal as a long-blooming choice in sunny borders, where it mixes well with most any color. Also a good choice on slopes, for lining driveways, and due to its colonizing habit, as a knee-high groundcover. Flowers best in full sun but also does fine in half-day light.
* Care: Keep damp the first season, then water usually not needed, except during hot and very dry spells. Scatter a balanced, organic granular fertilizer over the bed early each spring. Snip off flower spikes after bloom to neaten the plant and encourage continuing bloom. Shovel out sections that are creeping beyond where you want at any time. Cut to the ground after frost browns the foliage in fall or at the end of winter. Dig and divide sections in early spring if you want to speed up the expanding colony.
* Great partner: Looks especially nice with pink-blooming perennials, such as garden phlox, purple coneflowers and gaura. Pink shrub roses and ornamental grasses are other good partners.
I planted one of these this past spring. It never bloomed. AS I read down through the information, it looks like I have done everything “right” except scattering fertilizer. But I did use plant food throughout the summer. Any ideas on why it hasn’t bloomed?
Beverly,
It’s most likely a case of a young plant not blooming the first year after a transplant. That happens sometimes… plants need to sink their roots into the ground and get established before getting around to reproduction matters (which flowering is a part of).
Unless your soil is heavily compacted or very poor in nutrition, I think your ‘Hummelo’ will flower this year even if you do nothing.
Another possibility for non-bloom would be too much shade. ‘Hummelo’ does best in full sun but should bloom even in half-day light. If you have it in mostly shade, I’d move it into a sunnier location.
A soil test wouldn’t hurt if you haven’t done that lately, but if other flowers in the same area have been blooming, I think it’s just a first-year issue here.