Salvia

Additional Info

Indigenous to Brazil, where it is perennial, red salvia flowers are known as annual plants in temperate zones: they are damaged by hard frosts and will not survive through cold winters.

Although the scarlet varieties are the best known, Salvia splendens does come in other colors, including white, salmon, pink, purple, lavender, burgundy and orange. Salvia splendens reaches 18″-30″ in height. Its flowers grow on spikes and are quite showy — thus its popularity.

Grow red salvia flowers in a sunny area with a loamy, well-drained soil.

To improve their looks and encourage better flowering, deadhead red salvia plants. You can do this by pinching off the flower spikes with spent blooms. Make your pinch fairly far down on their stems. Be on the lookout for snails, slugs, and whitefly, all of which may bother red salvia plants.

Red salvia flowers can form a striking border when massed together as bedding plants. They are also popular in container gardens, where they can serve as a vertical accent. Along with geraniums and impatiens, they are perhaps the first flowers that come to mind for many folks when using annuals to inject a splash of red into the landscape.