Fabulous Friday: Pineapple Sage In Bloom

~

A hummingbird came zooming across my shoulder just as I began watering in the front garden this morning.  It went first to the nearest Canna blossoms, towering now 8′ or more.  But then, it zoomed straight down to the bright lipstick-red blossoms of our pineapple sage, just opening for the first time this morning.

The little hummer flitted from blossom to blossom, drinking deeply from each long, tubular flower.  Pineapple sage is a great favorite of hummingbirds, and gives that extra boost of energy before they leave for their migration.

~

Pineapple sage, Salvia elegans, grows together with a small Buddleia in the heart of our butterfly and hummingbird garden.  It began blooming today, immediately attracting our resident hummingbirds to taste its nectar.

~

Pineapple sage, Salvia elegans, has grown easier to find at spring plant sales in our area.  It is often offered in small pots, right among the other herbs.  It is easy to grow in full to partial sun, and quickly grows from a small start to a nice sized herbaceous ‘shrub.’  Other than keeping it watered during drought, and pinching it back from time to time to encourage bushiness, it needs little care.

A native of Central America and Mexico, pineapple sage loves heat and humidity.  But it is the shorter days which signal it to begin blooming.

It’s best season is autumn, and it will cover itself in flowers from now until frost.  We are fortunate that pineapple sage tends to return in our garden.  Although it is listed as hardy to Zone 8, it will survive our winter if its roots are deep and well established.  A little mulch helps it survive through winter.

~

~

Like so many herbs, pineapple sage is easy to propagate from stem cuttings or by division.  In the spring, you often can pull a rooted stem, left from the previous season, away from the crown and plant it elsewhere to help this clumping plant spread more quickly.  But we’ve never had a pineapple sage ‘run’ or grow out of control.  It is far better behaved than the mints!

Edible, the foliage has a wonderful fruity fragrance all season.  It is beautiful in fall arrangements and mixed container gardens.  In containers, it might crowd out other plants over the long summer season.  But rooted cuttings or small starter plants would be beautiful in pots newly refreshed for fall.

~

Pineapple sage in a vase with Mexican blue sage, Artemisia and Hibiscus acetosella, October 2015.

~

Salvia elegans has been identified as one of the top three favorite flowers  hummingbirds choose for feeding, in a study done in Central Mexico.  It’s long, tubular flowers just invite a hummingbird’s beak!  And since the flowers are clustered close together, it takes little effort to move from one to the next.

Our hummingbirds are happily darting about the garden this week, enjoying the Lantana, Verbena, ginger lily, Canna, and now also the pineapple sage, just coming into bloom.  They visit us as we sit on the deck and as we water and work among the plants.

It is fabulous to see fall’s brightest flowers blooming at last!

~

Pineapple sage lights up our garden in October 2014.

~

Woodland Gnome 2017

Fabulous Friday:  Happiness is contagious,

Let’s infect one another!

~

Flowers  our hummingbirds enjoy visiting:

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

In A Vase on Thursday

~

Cutting flowers from the garden is still a very hard thing for me to do.  The bees didn’t help the matter at all as they buzzed around the Mexican Sage I was dropping in a glass of water, as soon as I had cut it.  They were bewildered, and a bit annoyed, that I was taking their favorite flowers.

~

~

I walked right past the gorgeous Camellias, not wanting to cut their woody stems, which will keep on growing once the flowers drop.

Some will observe that cutting encourages new growth; a moot point in late October.  Others will chime in that frost can take them down at any time, anyway.

~

~

Whatever the merits of the arguments, I wanted to fill this silver coffee pot with flowers before my guests arrive in a few short hours.  It had grown a bit dusty and tarnished over the summer.

I enjoy the firm deadline an invitation imposes for one to seek out those pesky cobwebs normally ignored; clean out the stacks of catalogs by my chair, and perhaps shine a piece or two of silver.

And to cut flowers….

~

~

As usual, I’ve cut things I hope will root in the vase.  There are my two favorite Salvias in bloom this month:  Salvia leucantha and Salvia elegans.  And though only the Pineapple Sage is called elegant in its proper name, I find both to be very elegant in the fall garden.

~

~

The Salvia leucantha grow through an Artemisia in the front garden, and so I used a bit as filler.  I like its pale foliage against the silver coffee pot.  There are also a few branches of our African Rose Mallow, Hibiscus acetosella.

~

~

Cathy, continues to post her vase each Monday, and I think of her fondly as each Monday comes and goes.  I expect these flowers to still look lovely after the weekend, and perhaps I’ll consider myself a few days early instead of four days late!  Positive thinking is a habit, after all, isn’t it?

~

~

Our weather has turned nice again and I’ve been putting a few potted things back outside to enjoy our late October Indian Summer.  We certainly are enjoying these comfortable, sunny days.  And the small creatures in the garden, particularly the bees, celebrate all of the flowers still blooming so beautifully.

~

~

Woodland Gnome 2015

~

Beautiful Bees and Flutterbys

This gallery contains 17 photos.

Bees are always welcome in my garden for their wonderful buzzing and their help in pollination.  We have many different sorts of bees zooming around with the dragonflies, butterflies, and the humming birds.  Here are a few who stayed still long enough for me to get their photos.  The shrub “bones” of this garden are … Continue reading →