I discovered a delightful new plant this summer, though it took awhile.
Our relationship began at the Friends School Plant Sale, when I grabbed six pint-sized pots of salvia. I had just added S. quaranitica “Black and Blue” to my cart. This salvia brings hummingbirds to my garden with its tubular cobalt flowers. Who doesn’t love hummingbirds?
Right beside “Black and Blue” were salvias of similar size and shape but their foliage was lime green. A photograph showed Salvia in full bloom. The flower clusters were shaped like Christmas trees, though neither cobalt blue nor conifer green but fiery red orange.
I put S. elegans out of my mind until about two weeks later, when I noticed them sitting alone and abandoned in the flat they’d come home in. “Black and Blue” had been given a prominent place in the garden, one that would allow me a front-row seat as the hummingbirds arrived.
By now I’d forgotten what these lime-green seedlings were. Must be “Margeurite,” I decided, guessing they were the lime-colored sweet potato plant. They were too straggly to persuade me otherwise on the basis of leaf size and shape. (“Marguerite” has much bigger leaves.)
I stashed them in a sunny corner and gave them a drink of water. A few weeks later I moved them into a pair of repurposed cedar window boxes. These had been replaced by window boxes made of galvanized steel painted to look like weathered copper the summer before. The wooden window boxes’ new purpose was to prop up a sagging fence.
A month or more later I noticed that the lime-colored plants had quadrupled in size. Their foliage was doing a commendable job of setting off some pink roses and powder-blue veronica. I was very glad I’d bought them.
In early September a gardener friend came by. S. elegans stopped her in her tracks. She couldn’t get over how big they were. What was my secret?
Then she added, “Don’t you love their scent?”
I hadn’t noticed a scent.
She looked at me for a few seconds, probably wondering if I was making a joke. Finally she said, “You know, pineapple. Like the common name.”
I wasn’t about to admit that I didn’t know S. elegans’s common name, much less that I’d thought the salvias were sweet potato vines. So when she suggested I rub a leaf between my thumb and forefinger and give S. elegans a sniff, I obeyed.
Then I said, “Wow!!!”
If she’d pulled a can of Dole pineapple slices out of her purse and admitted to having dabbed the leaf with the juice when my back was turned, I’d have believed her.
Once again I said, “Wow!!”
“You’ve never smelled it?”
“So why isn’t it blooming?” I asked, ducking the question. I’d known what it was back when I bought it, after all…
Now she was stumped. It was getting on toward October and no sign of a bud. “Black and Blue” had been slow to bloom, too, until I potted it up and moved it away from a shade tree.
“Not enough sun?”
“Maybe.”
The discovery of S. elegans’ special smell didn’t prevent me from forgetting about it again. This time I was bringing tender plants indoors. There’d been a hard-freeze warning.
As I was spreading sheets over nasturtiums and roses, I spotted the salvias.
Suddenly it was imperative that I give them a chance to flower. I phoned a burly guy I know and begged him to come help me. The window boxes were too unwieldy for one person to handle.
We lugged them upstairs to my bedroom. The south-facing bay window had yet to be assigned its winter guests. The boxes would fit perfectly on the window seat.
As we were hoisting them onto their rectangular trays (winter-boot trays in a previous life), I saw something suspiciously budlike. Could it be?
Word spread quickly from plant to plant that they’d been rescued. Time to show some gratitude. Within a few hours all six of them were waving buds so long they drooped under the weight of the tightly coiled flowers inside.
I knew from observing “Black and Blue” not to be alarmed. The flowers would right themselves in no time.
At this writing there are more than a dozen. They resemble miniature Christmas tree that have been dipped in orange paint.
My only regret is that the hummingbirds aren’t still around to enjoy the nectar.
THIS WEEK’S TO-DO LIST
- Get those bulbs in the ground. The weather is perfect, but spring-like temperatures can deceive. It’s no longer de rigeuer to add bonemeal to the planting hole, by the way.
- Concerned about conifer needles turning brown and dropping off? Don’t be. Evergreens drop their needles just like woody plants do, just not all of them. Only if your tree develops large bare patches should you call the plant doc.
- Speaking of burnt foliage, another item to delete from the worry list is dessication. Your conifers are not likely suffering from thirst, unless they are growing directly below a shady tree with a dense canopy or a building’s eaves. Too much water can actually can kill a conifer. Junipers are especially unhappy in waterlogged soil.
- Keep the mower blade high. Clippings decompose more easily if they’re not too long and longer blades absorb more energy. All plants absorb and store energy until the first hard freeze. The more foliage you leave on the plant as long as possible, the healthier your plants will be come spring. That means, better disease-resistance, bigger plants and more flowers.
- Many hybrid tea roses are hardy to Zone 5. Rosarians no longer recommend tipping these marginally hardy plants. Instead plant them deep, with the bud union two inches below ground, and in late fall mound compost or shredded leaves (enclosed in a wire mesh cage) to the tops of the stems, so the plant is entirely covered.
