Salvia splendens Lighthouse Purple Seeds - Scarlet Sage

Salvia splendens Lighthouse Purple is one of the biggest hybrids of Scarlet Sage available on the horticultural market, but is also a variety that displays the most dazzling purple blooms. Seen from afar, its generous spikes held 60 cm above the ground, are tightly packed with many small flowers of a rich violet-purple hue that displays many nuances in the sunlight. This tall-standing variety becomes the star of sunny beds for the space of a whole season. This perennial plant is grown as an annual in our climates and also performs very well in a large pot in moist, light, well-drained soil. 

Salvia splendens is a herbaceous plant of the family Lamiaceae, native to the hot, humid regions of Brazil at an altitude between 2000 and 3000 m above sea level. Sometimes it reaches up to 1.30 m in its native habitat but in our climates, it has much more modest proportions.

The Lighthouse Purple variety is a horticultural hybrid derived from this plant, that has recently won an award at Fleuroselect. It is characterized by its tall, bushy growth habit, its well-branched stems and its particularly developed spikes of flowers. This plant forms bushy clumps that measuring 60 to 80 cm high and 50 cm wide. The quadrangular stems are well-branched and erect. Their brilliant bluish green leaves are oval to lanceolate, toothed and cover the entire length of the stems. The floral spikes measuring 30 cm long and 12 cm in width, rise above the foliage from the beginning of summer to the end of autumn. The 5 cm long tubular flowers are violet-purple and are surrounded by dark purple bracts. 

Scarlet sage is the undisputed queen of 'express' beds, which everyone has encountered at least once, on a detour around a neighbouring garden or in the flowerbeds of public gardens. The tall Lighthouse Purple variety with the elegant colour of its blooms, is easier to integrate into summer displays than its little sisters with their flashy red flowers. Used in moderation and planted in small groups that are spread out among other plants with complementary colours (the red in the scrambling rose Red Cascade, the orange of Daylilies, blue Delphinium and the silver in sagebrushes), it adds extra depth to flowerbeds, blooming even when summer perennials go dormant. It also performs very well in a large tub, where it can be used to decorate terraces and balconies.