Growing Herbs in Texas: Growing Salvia Coccinea

Reader Contribution by Staff
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Cynthia Meredith has been gardening with herbs, reading about herbs, and discussing herb gardening in Texas for more than 20 years. She has owned The Herb Cottage (www.theherbcottage.com) for over 10 years, selling herb plants to people all over our state.

Fall has definitely come to south central Texas. The nights are dipping into the 50s while the days are up in the 80s. It’s nice and sunny with very low humidity. Quite a change from the last several months of hot, humid and wet weather. The consequence of the new season is that herbs are coming out of summer dormancy, fall flowering herbs are blooming and the salvia that has seeded itself around the yard area is blooming like crazy!


Photos by Cynthia Meredith

I’m talking about Salvia coccinea, also known as hummingbird sage or autumn sage, due to its great show of fall flowers. S. coccinea comes in more than just the original red. Coral and white flowers also abound in the mix.


Photo by Cynthia Meredith

Last year, after at least a year of drought, I had barely any S. coccinea come up. At that time I told myself I would leave any that reseeded and came up this year. There have been years I’ve pulled them out of garden beds so I could have room for other plants, and I regretted that last year. This year, I’ve been true to my word.


Photo by Cynthia Meredith

On a side note, it could be that I have had little time to tidy certain beds and the proliferation of S. coccinea covers up weedy and unkempt areas! The result is that there are great sweeps of the fabulous sage in lots of the yard area.

  • Published on Oct 6, 2010
Tagged with: Reader Contributions
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