I'll start...
(with a post that ended up being really long!
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I wasn't able to do much gardening this year, but I was given some patio containers this spring containing plants in the Salvia splendens Grandstand™ series.
The series has a few interesting color forms and plants are a little taller and bushier than those found in the most ubiquitous dwarf Salvia splendens strains. It is a vegetatively propagated series.
https://green-fuse.com/site/sa...
https://gpnmag.com/article/cul...
I especially like that they don't take the long breaks between bloom cycles like many Salvia splendens do. They seemed equally content to bloom in the shorter days of March as well as the longer days of summer. Even when I allowed them to set seed, they quickly continued to form new spikes of flowers while the seeds developed. I'm hoping that the seedlings retain this quality. I was actually quite surprised that they set seed since the other vegetatively propagated Salvia splendens that I've grown were sterile (Saucy™ series).
I had four colors from the series:
Purple - standard dark purple color for S. splendens
Lavender - a nice mauve-lavender color that I really liked.
Red Lipstick Pink - a fun and unusual combo of red calyces and pink corollas.
Blue Bicolor - another fun and unusual coloration of bluish-lavender streaked with white. Great color, but this one did have the bad habit of clinging on to its dead corollas.
I'd love to try the Salmon, too, if I ever find it for sale.
They were growing on my porch in morning sun with afternoon shade. Although it will tolerate full sun, to me, this species always looks better when given afternoon shade in my climate.
Sadly, some mysterious creature recently decided to devour my Salvia splendens and Coleus plants. This has happened at random times in the past with other varieties of Salvia splendens and Coleus so it's no fault of this particular series. It's as if the creature suddenly becomes obsessed with these species and seeks them out. I'm pretty sure it is either rabbits or rodents, and I highly suspect that it's chipmunks. Oh well, I'm, at least, thankful that I was able to collect seeds before their demise.
Has anyone else grown plants from the Grandstand™ series?
What was your opinion of them?
