AAS Winner 2012
Simply the most beautiful thing the garden has ever seen, this unstoppable, super-quick hummingbird sage is out to transform your sunny annual bed and best containers into a haven for butterflies, bees, and hummers. The blush-pink blooms begin in late spring and don't think about quitting until early fall, so get your camera and vases ready.
Winner of an All-America Selections Award, Summer Jewel Pink is a dwarf annual sage with super-abundant ½-inch blooms of soft powder pink. Now, ½-inch may not sound like much, but multiply it by several hundred and you get the idea of what a fully blooming stand of only 3 to 5 plants is going to look like. And the flowers bounce right back from wind and rain (unlike older varieties of hummingbird sage, let us tell you.) Can't beat it with a stick.
These flowers crowd along slender but sturdy stems among fuzzy mid-green foliage, signaling hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies to come and feast. This plant is just 15 to 20 inches high in bloom and 10 to 15 inches wide, but it gets the job donelots of flowering stems, always heavily packed with soft pink pastel hues and usually a winged visitor or two, too.
Summer Jewel Pink is a native plant, content in any well-drained soil receiving full sunshine to light shade, but best when the soil is fertile and the moisture is consistent. It will tolerate heat, humidity, dry soil, and other stresses, but you'll want to pamper it to keep those amazing blooms coming in the greatest possible number. The show is just too jaw-dropping to cut short.
Great for containers as well as the annual bed, meadow, or cottage garden, Summer Jewel Pink is ideal for the vase too. Expect it to start blooming just 50 days after sowing the seed, and to continue over 3 splendidly long seasons. Unbeatable. Hardy in zones 7-10, but grown as an annual everywhere.
