For intense color saturation on neat, compact plants that really take the summer heat, Vista Purple is unbeatable. This charmer begins flowering early (before the end of spring in most climates) and continues up to frost, filling garden and container with rich plummy-purple, rosy-magenta color that attracts hummingbirds, butterflies, and compliments by the dozen.
A selection of Scarlet Sage (S. splendens), this tender perennial is grown as an annual in American gardens. It takes off like crazy, setting large, toothy green foliage below the 4- to 5-inch flower spikes. Nice in the vase, it's really a bedding plant extraordinaire, absolutely knockout beautiful in large plantings.
Yet Vista Purple isn't a space hog, reaching just 10 to 12 inches high and perhaps 8 inches wide. This means you can squeeze it into containers (its nicely vertical habit makes it a great companion to trailing and mounding varieties) as well as tucking into empty garden spots as needed. Plan to grow an extra packet of seeds just as fill-ins; they will become the stars of any sunny setting.
Vista Purple is a continuous bloomer all season, but it must be deadheaded or cut for new buds to appear. So keep the plant looking fresh, and it will repay you with nonstop color from spring through summer and fall. It even persists through those deadly hot August weeks when others melt out.
Holding its rich color better in the sunny garden than most other Salvias, Vista is superbly heat-tolerant, and blooms in just 9 to 10 weeks from seeda bit quicker than most others in the family. An all-around all-star.
Direct sow this salvia or begin the seeds indoors for even earlier blooms. Not fussy about soil, it flourishes in blazing sun, tolerating heat, drought, and other vagaries of the weather. The foliage is evergreen, and so in the coastal West and milder climates of the South it may overwinter and flower again the following spring, though the first year will be its most majestic.
