{"id":87,"date":"2008-03-31T07:34:14","date_gmt":"2008-03-31T15:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=87"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:33:24","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:33:24","slug":"brenthurst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/brenthurst\/","title":{"rendered":"Brenthurst"},"content":{"rendered":"

BRENTHURST
\n<\/font><\/font><\/strong>\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Last summer, for the first time in years, I had the pleasure of regular hummingbird visits.\u00a0 A single tiny bird came by every afternoon to sip nectar from the butterfly bush and other plants in my upper back garden.\u00a0 Its route always seemed to be the same, and it never strayed into the front yard.\u00a0\u00a0 The back garden is protected and quiet, and perhaps the bird preferred that situation to the busier area in front of the house.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I fell in love with “my”\u009d hummingbird and regarded its presence as a sign of good luck and good gardening.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The garden is full of plants that Nature equipped to attract butterflies, hummingbirds and a large cast of other nectar eaters.\u00a0 The best of those plants include catmint, caryopteris or blue mist shrub, lavender of various types, milkweeds and hyssop.\u00a0 The mint family is exceptionally well represented with one exception.\u00a0 I have only one ornamental salvia on the entire property.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My lone salvia is a low-growing, white-flowered variety that spills out onto the edge of my front walk.\u00a0 Every year it produces abundant flowers throughout the growing season and is regularly patronized by cabbage butterflies and silver-spotted skippers.\u00a0 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.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Nor have I warmed to any of the hundreds of other salvias in more interesting shades.\u00a0 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.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Then, one day last year as I was thumbing through a favorite catalog, I discovered Salvia coccinea ‘Brenthurst’.\u00a0 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.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ‘Brenthurst’ is a variety of Salvia coccinea, which is sometimes known as Texas sage, scarlet sage or blood sage.\u00a0 The species has bright red flowers that act as beacons to the hummingbirds that pollinate them.\u00a0 The plant catalogs classify S. coccinea as a “tender perennial,”\u009d but most gardeners in cold winter areas grow them as annuals.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ‘Brenthurst’ is also classified as a “non-aromatic sage”\u009d; its leaves do not have the distinctive sagey aroma characteristic of all the culinary and some of the ornamental species.\u00a0 You can’t use Brenthurst’s leaves in your poultry stuffing, but you can fill pots with the plants and revel in the flowers.\u00a0 The latter is better for your soul on a hot day anyway.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The word “salvia”\u009d comes from the Latin word meaning “to heal”\u009d.\u00a0 “Coccinea”\u009d is also from the Latin word for the color red.\u00a0 The species is native to Mexico, parts of Central and South America, the West Indies and the American South.\u00a0 Salvia coccinea was first described in the late eighteenth century and has enjoyed popularity ever since.\u00a0 Horticultural innovator Thomas Jefferson grew the red-flowered plants at Monticello, where they still bloom every year.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I like ‘Brenthurst’ for its peachy pink complexion and compact stature, which tops out at about twenty inches tall.\u00a0 The leaves are the typical salvia type, and to my eye, look rather coarse.\u00a0 It doesn’t matter, as the plant is in bloom almost continuously for most of the growing season.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I grew a large pot of ‘Brenthurst’ in the front garden last year.\u00a0 It was a great success with the butterflies as well as with human garden visitors.\u00a0 However, since it was in front, I never say the hummingbird near it.\u00a0 This year I will put it in the back garden to make it more enticing.\u00a0 I am hoping the hummingbird will return and bring friends.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You can order ‘Brenthurst’ plants from Select Seeds, 180 Stickney Hill Road, Union, CT 06076, (800) 684-0395, www.selectseeds.com<\/font><\/a>.\u00a0 Free catalog<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BRENTHURST \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Last summer, for the first time in years, I had the pleasure of regular hummingbird visits.\u00a0 A single tiny bird came by every afternoon to sip nectar from the butterfly bush and other plants in my upper back garden.\u00a0 Its route always seemed to be the same, and it never strayed into … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring","category-summer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1693,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions\/1693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}