Deeply Rooted

Some plants when you first lay eyes on them in the greenhouse leave something to be desired. When they are small with only green foliage and maybe one spire of flowers, these plants can often be out shone by their much faster blooming housemates such as petunias and Calibrachoa. However a little research goes a long way to find those hidden treasure. And I am here to spill the beans on a recent favorite of ours, the Rockin’ variety of Salvia. Now I am not just calling it Rockin’ because I think it’s amazing, but because that is actually this salvias variety. I imagine the developers of the Rockin’ Salvia thought it was so amazing that it had to be put in the name. There are several colour selections for the Rockin’ Salvia such as, Deep Purple, Blue Suede shoes, Playing the Blues, and Fuchsia to name some.

So why is this plant so amazing? Well when you first lay eyes on it in the greenhouse you may not think much of it. In fact you may simply gloss over it. Large dark green leaves and possibly a small spire of purple flowers is all you will see. But never judge something by your first impressions. Once planted this beauty launches into its full glory, growing up to 40″ tall and 30″ wide, That’s almost 4 feet by 3 feet! If their size doesn’t impress you, their blooms will. Large spires of vibrant blue, purple, or pink flowers overtake this bush sized annual in a stunning display. With the proper care these garden giants will give you blooms right up to the hard frosts. If I haven’t convinced you that you need this plant in your life already, let me tell you more. These plants are self-dead heading, I could stop there and have most of you sold on it. Who doesn’t love a self-deadheading plant? But let us continue. This Salvia is drought tolerant, heat tolerant, and can take anywhere from full sun to 4 hours a day, that’s pretty versatile. They also attract humming birds, butterflies, and bees. And this plant is an award winner of 20 awards! Awards such as top performer, best of the best, perfect score all season, and the leader of the pack early season to just name a few. They are also deer resistant and generally are incredibly easy to care for! Personally this plant has moved to the top of the charts for my list of favorite plants and I definitely won’t be singing the blues about this one.