BRENTHURST
Last summer, for the first time in years, I had the pleasure of regular hummingbird visits. A single tiny bird came by every afternoon to sip nectar from the butterfly bush and other plants in my upper back garden. Its route always seemed to be the same, and it never strayed into the front yard. The back garden is protected and quiet, and perhaps the bird preferred that situation to the busier area in front of the house.
I fell in love with “my” hummingbird and regarded its presence as a sign of good luck and good gardening.
The garden is full of plants that Nature equipped to attract butterflies, hummingbirds and a large cast of other nectar eaters. The best of those plants include catmint, caryopteris or blue mist shrub, lavender of various types, milkweeds and hyssop. The mint family is exceptionally well represented with one exception. I have only one ornamental salvia on the entire property.
My lone salvia is a low-growing, white-flowered variety that spills out onto the edge of my front walk. Every year it produces abundant flowers throughout the growing season and is regularly patronized by cabbage butterflies and silver-spotted skippers. The white salvia is aromatic when sheared back after flowering and it certainly requires little care, but for some reason I have never warmed to it.
Nor have I warmed to any of the hundreds of other salvias in more interesting shades. My father planted an entire bed full of brilliant, red-flowered annual salvia every year for about thirty years, but even nostalgia wouldn’t prompt me to put such a thing in my garden.
Then, one day last year as I was thumbing through a favorite catalog, I discovered Salvia coccinea ‘Brenthurst’. The soft pink, tubular blossoms spoke to me from the pages and I replied by ordering two plants as quickly as I could pull out my credit card.
‘Brenthurst’ is a variety of Salvia coccinea, which is sometimes known as Texas sage, scarlet sage or blood sage. The species has bright red flowers that act as beacons to the hummingbirds that pollinate them. The plant catalogs classify S. coccinea as a “tender perennial,” but most gardeners in cold winter areas grow them as annuals.
‘Brenthurst’ is also classified as a “non-aromatic sage”; its leaves do not have the distinctive sagey aroma characteristic of all the culinary and some of the ornamental species. You can’t use Brenthurst’s leaves in your poultry stuffing, but you can fill pots with the plants and revel in the flowers. The latter is better for your soul on a hot day anyway.
The word “salvia” comes from the Latin word meaning “to heal”. “Coccinea” is also from the Latin word for the color red. The species is native to Mexico, parts of Central and South America, the West Indies and the American South. Salvia coccinea was first described in the late eighteenth century and has enjoyed popularity ever since. Horticultural innovator Thomas Jefferson grew the red-flowered plants at Monticello, where they still bloom every year. Now all salvias are enjoying a surge in popularity because they are drought-resistant, native to the United States and have a talent for attracting pollinators. Breeders have softened the species’ dramatic red coloring to include pink-flowered varieties like ‘Brenthurst’ and ‘Coral Nymph’, white-flowered cultivars like ‘White Nymph’ and bi-colors. I like ‘Brenthurst’ for its peachy pink complexion and compact stature, which tops out at about twenty inches tall. The leaves are the typical salvia type, and to my eye, look rather coarse. It doesn’t matter, as the plant is in bloom almost continuously for most of the growing season.
I grew a large pot of ‘Brenthurst’ in the front garden last year. It was a great success with the butterflies as well as with human garden visitors. However, since it was in front, I never say the hummingbird near it. This year I will put it in the back garden to make it more enticing. I am hoping the hummingbird will return and bring friends.
You can order ‘Brenthurst’ plants from Select Seeds, 180 Stickney Hill Road, Union, CT 06076, (800) 684-0395, www.selectseeds.com. Free catalog