This is excellent with all the bells and whistles one could want in a garden plant. It's drought tolerant, pest resistant, pollinator friendly, low maintenance , a foliar fragrance, long bloom time, a beautiful shade of green to the leaf with a great look overall. If you don't give it supplemental water it will not increase in clump size so quickly. I have never seen any evidence of chew marks from insects and I hear it's dear proof too. The Hummers and other pollinators love it. We trim it as low too the ground as possible and if it starts to grow and then there's a frost that kills the tender new growth it comes back without missing a beat here in Zone 9b. I just shovel pruned away about 70% off the large clump pictured above and it won't need that again for several years. The stems and the underside of each leaf is a fuzzy white and the flowers are white emerging from the fuzzy purple bracts that persist long after the flowering has past. This is a stalwart in this garden as are it's cultivar S. 'Santa Barbara' and the later blooming hybrid cross S. 'Anthony Parker'. Each long stem is toped by these long flower spikes that dance in the slightest breeze and standup to the scorching dry heat of our typical summers here in Sacramento.
