austin wildflower

This beautiful plant was one of the first plantings I made in my garden, along the pathway to the back garden and I can't remember its name.

I thought originally it was some kind of skullcap because I didn't know anything about plants when I bought it, but its behavior is almost identical to Texas red sage (Salvia coccinea) so I'm thinking that I planted a variety of red sage called "Coral Nymph'. Both can get quite rangy by the end of the summer, are the same height (1 1/2 to 2 feet) and have similar leaves and both like growing in the same dappled shade conditions. I thought that Salvia coccinea was more of a tender perennial treated like an annual here but this pink sage is almost four years old and has been green in winter.

Texas red sage grew from seed all over my backyard. It likes dappled shade under trees.

At the end of last summer, I thought the pink salvia was a goner to the heat and drought. My two plants were also planted too far into the bed so got overwhelmed by taller plants. So I replanted them and cut them back severely in the fall. They seemed to like the move as well as the additional water they got from the drip system and this year they bloomed their hearts out all summer long, one of the few flowers to do so.

By September I noticed they had reseeded themselves in other parts of the garden. Ironically they reseeded in the same parts where I had intentionally seeded the red sage. So I don't know if 1. pink is a natural variation in the red seeds or 2. the pink version comes true from seed. The only way I'll be able to tell is if I isolate some seeds from the pink ones next month.