| True blue is hard to find in the garden, which makes this delightful little Sage all the more welcome! Its masses of blooms are pure, bright ultramarine, and they keep coming in the sunny garden all the way from midsummer until the first frost. You can't ask for a harder-working, more eye-catching, easier-to-care-for annual! Blue Angel is quick-growing, upright, and nicely branched, with each flowering stem loaded with tubular 2- to 2 1/2-inch blooms. These little flag-like blossoms are held out almost horizontally, creating layers and layers of rich color in bed or border. Butterflies and hummingbirds find Blue Angel very enticing, and once you see how beautifully this shade of blue complements all your red, yellow, orange, and white blooms, you will too! Blue Angel is a species of Salvia called patens, and its common name is Gentian Sage. The color is its trademark, and no variety has larger or brighter blooms to show off that color than Blue Angel! Expect this plant to reach 24 to 28 inches high and about 8 to 12 inches wide, with an upright, multi-stemmed habit. A large planting of Blue Angel is absolutely breathtaking, but you might also like to mix it in among annuals of all colors, simply for the beautiful blue accents. It fares well in containers too, but I have to admit that for my money, a big garden planting is best, where the blue can become a rippling sea in the late summer breezes! Sow the seed uncovered (it needs light to germinate) about 2 months before you want to set out the transplants in spring. It flowers about 11 to 13 weeks from sprouting. Easy, long-blooming, and uncommonly lovely! Pkt is 25 seeds. |
