Summer Jewel™ Red Salvia Seeds

All-America Selections (AAS) Winner 2011

Fleuroselect Gold Medal Winner

The brightest 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 and hummers. The fire-engine-red 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 Selection award and, even more impressive, the rarely-given Fleuroselect Gold Medal, Summer Jewel red is a dwarf annual sage with superabundant ½-inch blooms of brilliant red. 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 dark emerald green foliage, signaling hummingbirds to come and feast. This plant is just 20 inches high in bloom and not more than 16 inches wide, but it gets the job done—lots of flowering stems, always heavily packed with neon-bright color and usually a winged visitor or two, too.

Summer Jewel red is a Native plant, content in any well-drained soil receiving full sunshine, 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 red begins blooming just about 50 days after you sow the seeds. Just think—less than 2 months from now, you could be seeing the first of these powerhouse blooms. Start the seeds indoors for best results, and don't transplant until the soil has thoroughly warmed. When it's no holds barred, for months and months. Great in the vase too.