Perhaps in the wild, it blooms in autumn. Where it gets watered in home gardens, even if watered only occasionally, autumn sage, Salvia greggii, blooms all through summer as well. If pruned back severely over winter, it starts to bloom even sooner in spring. The tiny flowers are red, rose, pink, peach, very pale yellow, lavender or white. Some poplar cultivars have bi-colored flowers.
Compact autumn sage that does not get much more than a foot tall is uncommon. Larger cultivars get four feet tall and broad, with more open growth. Most get about three feet high and a bit wider. Without severe winter pruning, stems can eventually get twiggy, with sparse foliage on the exterior. The tiny aromatic leaves are less than an inch long, and visually resemble oregano.
Even though it is not native to California, autumn sage is popular for native landscaping because it does not need much water. Just like native sages, it attracts butterflies and hummingbirds.
Beautiful
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Thank you. It is at the library downtown,with other species that do not need much attention.
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What a nice place to have these 😉
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Yes, there is not much space outside there, but what is there can survive with minimal irrigation if necessary, and does not require much attention. The hummingbirds enjoy that landscape.
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Not hardy here, sadly, even though one year a local nursery was selling it and plenty of people bought it, even though the hardiness zone was listed as 6 and above (we live in 5).
I saw a lot of it at the Lady Bird Johnson gardens in Austin. Sure is pretty!
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The gardening articles are written for the West Coast between San Francisco and Beverly Hills (in Los Angeles County). One of the problems with blogging is that everything that I post can be seen anywhere. I post my articles directly, as they appear in the newspapers, without explanation about location. which is why much of what I write about is not relevant to all locations.
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Oh, I understand that. I was just expressing my regret that I can’t grow something so lovely here. One of the interesting things about blogging is that you get to see so many different things that you may not otherwise be familiar with!
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Ironically, I started writing my gardening column two decades ago so that I could write specifically for the Santa Clara Valley. Prior to that, gardening articles were taken from random other newspapers in other climates and other regions. Much of the information was irrelevant or inaccurate. Now, my articles are in the same situation.
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