Proven Winners’ Salvia gets our patio containers Rockin’

One of our hummingbirds pay Rockin’ Deep Purple salvia a visit. Notice the dark calyx surrounding the purple flowers that give the plant a cool look even when the flower has faded and fell to the ground.

One season of Deep Purple will make you a fan too

Proven Winners’ Rockin’ Deep Purple Salvia are the rock stars of our patio containers this summer.

All you need to do is spend an afternoon on the outdoor patio and there’s no denying Rockin Deep Purple salvia’s popularity. Like groupies at a rock concert the hummingbirds and bees just keep buzzing around the plants. It’s now September, and these plants have been performing since I planted them in spring.

This image catches the hummingbird’s beautiful green feathers against a dark backdrop.

It’s hard to imagine what they have in mind for an encore this fall.

Last year I planted another Proven Winners’ salvia – Rockin’ The Blues salvia – out in the landscape and missed most of the hummingbird action.

This year, however, I decided to put the plants in large black containers on the patio where I could keep a closer eye on its fans.

Our native Bumble bees are in love with the Deep Purple salvias in the garden. If you are interested, check out my post on the importance of our native bumble bees.

The aerial acrobatics is great fun to watch as the hummingbirds battle over the plants.

Oh man, I was not disappointed. The bees and hummingbirds have been visiting the dark purple flowers almost since the day I planted them in spring.

Besides the attractiveness of these plants to pollinators and hummingbirds, their extremely low-maintenance growth habits have made a real fan out of me too.

These hybrid salvias from Proven Winners are not new. They’ve been around since about 2017, but they’re new to me. And they are new to the hummingbirds in our garden who have put these tough, upright plants on their regular hourly feeding rounds for the summer

In fact, as the end of summer approaches, the hummingbirds are actually beginning their aerial acrobatics over and around these Rockin’ salvias in a show of dominance to keep competitors away.

A female hummingbird works the Rockin’ Deep Purple salvia.

When the dark purple flowers are finished blooming, the calyx, which holds the flower petals, remains a really dark purple almost black and gives the effect that the plant is still in bloom, when it’s actually not. Traditional salvias’ calyx’s turn brown and lessen the appearance of the plants. Not these Rockin’ ones.

The light green foliage on the plants looks good throughout the summer too and there is no need for pruning these neatly-growing upright plants or even deadheading.

A dragonfly takes a quick break on the Deep Purple salvia calyx topping off the plant in fine form.

The only chore is to clean up the fallen petals left lying on the ground. I like to leave the purple flower petals on the patio for a while because they look so good just laying there.

Rockin’ Deep Purple salvia is joined by a lighter blue version named Rockin’ Playing the Blues. The entire Rockin’ series features fragrant foliage, a long blooming time, a tolerance for extreme heat and, most important, are very attractive to pollinators.

The Salvias have been alive with Bumble bees from spring through summer.

In addition there is the Rockin’ Golden Delicious with striking yellow-green foliage and Rockin’ Fuchsia with its unique fuchsia coloured flowers.

This hummer eyes its next flower as it makes its rounds in the garden. I love that the flower is in focus here but the hummingbird is just out of the camera’s focus range as it prepares to move in for a meal.

What to expect in the garden

You can expect a height of between 24 - 36 inches on these upright plants in the garden with a comparable spread.

Keep them well watered and fertilize about once a week for best blooms.

Ours are in sun for most of the day and are doing well. Proven Winners says the plants perform at their best in part sun to sun.

The good news is that the plants will bloom from spring right to the first hard frost.

They are hardy in zones 9a, 9b, 10a, 10b, 11a, 11b. In colder zones, you can just treat them like an annual.

Plant them in the garden beds and use them as thrillers in large containers. I guarantee, you won’t be disappointed.

For those who worry about using a cultivar in their garden, Proven Winners say the plant is “sterile so it will not set seed and that means it will just bloom, and bloom and bloom all season without stopping.”

The company also says the salvias “can easily trim to keep the shape or size where you want it, and it will branch out and become even thicker and more full of flowers.

Proven Winners states that: “Regular watering and fertilizing will keep the plant at maximum colour and growth but it is amazingly tough and once established in a pot it will tolerate lower levels of food and water. However, severe drought will cause lower leaves to drop and if this happens give it a quick haircut removing the upper 1/3 of growth and once it’s back to normal watering it will fill back in.”

I could not resist putting in this B&W photo of the lone salvia flower on the leaf. For more garden B&W photography, you can check out my earlier post A woodland garden: Study in B&W.

Just keep on rockin’

Salvias are a great addition to any wildlife garden and a plant that you’ll want to feature in several areas of your garden. Look for spots that you know will get plenty of sun and plug them into the landscape in groupings of three to maximize their benefits.

I like the drama of Rockin’ Deep Purple, but Rocking Playing the Blues added a nice soft blue to the garden last year. Next year I’ll look for Rockin’ Fuschia to add a pop of colour to a sunny spot. I’m thinking they would be showstoppers in our black containers.

Proven Winners 2022 Gardener’s Idea Book is another winner

You can download your free copy directly from Proven Winners’ website

Proven Winners’ 2022 Gardener’s Idea Book takes a page or two from last year’s informative booklet and adds some interesting extras that are sure to pique your interest.

If you have not ordered your free printed copy, you can download the 42-page booklet just by logging in to the Proven Winners’ web site and going to the Gardener’s Idea Book download. There are a total of 14 excellent downloads on this web page, including this year’s Idea Book and last year’s outstanding Gardener’s Idea Book.

Other downloads include: A new Vision for Hydrangeas, PW perennials, Landscape Solutions for the South, and a new vision for Native shrubs. Some of the downloads are even available in French and Latin.

If you love the Proven Winner’s Idea Book, Check out my link to the 2023 Idea Book here.

Here is a link to the 2021 Proven Winners’ Gardener’s Idea Book.

Proven Winner’s 2022 Gardener’s Idea Book cover.

Like last year’s booklet that included a series of planted containers featuring outstanding combinations of Proven Winners’ plants, this year’s booklet follows up with 4 pages offering up tips on choosing container companion plants. Proven Winners provides valuable information on creating containers of plants that prefer similar growing conditions and plants with similar growth rates. Both features are important to get the most out of your containers. Not only do they provide a list of the plants along with images of what you can expect, Proven Winners’ experts also provide planting maps on how best to create the look.

If you are like me and depend on containers to add colour and interest to your garden, you will appreciate the ease of following these guidelines to create stunning containers for both sunny and shady areas.

The booklet also explores five tips for creating outstanding window boxes for shaded areas, and a separate feature about using window boxes around living areas such as decks and patios to create more cozy living areas.

It’s important to note that, although Proven Winners has outstanding plants and shrubs that can be real standouts in the garden, they are cultivated plants and therefore not native. As a result, these cultivated plants, while performing admirably when it comes to flowering or growth habits, are unlikely to provide wildlife with the same benefits as the species or native plants that the fauna has evolved with over centuries.

See my article on why we should use native plants in our gardens.

Proven Winners’ Gardener’s Idea book offers plans on installing a rain garden complete with planting suggestions.

Focus on Rain Gardens

Proven Winners explores one of the growing trends in natural gardens with a focus on building and planting a small rain garden. The rain garden plan provided in the booklet focuses on a shaded area along a driveway. How many of us have that exact problem, where water runs down between the houses in the long narrow strip separating the driveways?

Proven Winners’ booklet helps to provide a solution for the problem with this two-page feature that provides a simple construction plan along with a planting scheme and, of course, excellent photographs to illustrate the final look.

Tips on creating a DIY planter table

Other articles in the booklet include creating a planter table that centres around creating a living centre piece of flowers, herbs and vegetables. The large table with living plants running down the middle is an impressive creation and would provide a topic of lively discussion around the dinner table with friends.

A smaller, DIY planter table on a budget is a great project for either a smaller garden or a great option to introduce children to garden dining, as well as maintaining a small herb and vegetable garden.

There are other pages devoted to Proven Winners’ favourite social media gardeners including Laura LeBoutillier from @GardenAnswer and Jenny Simpson @gardeningwithcreekside.

Plenty of garden plans and illustrations

Several pages are devoted to creating new garden areas designed for specific results. All of the designs include complete planting guides as well as photos to illustrate the final result. Of course, they all feature Proven Winners product, but gardeners could easily swap out some of the Proven Winners suggestions for some of their own favourites native plants.

The individual gardens include a “summer sunglow” garden centered around a small shed or children’s playhouse that include plantings of coleus, verbena and Lemon Coral Sedum with grasses forming the backdrop.

A hummingbird garden design is provided in the Gardener’s Idea booklet.

A garden to attract hummingbirds

Other garden designs include a sun worshippers design, a garden for hummingbirds, a lush bold border and a border designed as a deer-friendly border for those of us who struggle with deer in our yards.

That’s already a lot of value packed in to the booklet, but it’s really only the beginning of the information provided to readers.

Tips to create your own Moonlit Garden

The four pages dedicated to a moonlight garden using primarily white and cream plants and night blooming flowers is full of great ideas. The impressive garden featured in the booklet is large, but downsizing the plan to include a smaller area of the garden, let’s say a corner or even just the area around your patio, is entirely possible and more likely a realistic goal for most homeowners.

Not only does a moonlight garden look great in the evening and is perfect for those who like to entertain, for wildlife gardeners the moonlight garden is ideal for attracting moths and bats to the garden.

To wrap it up, the booklet offers ideas and tips on using plants as a screen for unsightly views or privacy from your neighbours.

There are also pages focusing on gardening in arid spaces, and extending the life of your outdoor plants by bringing them indoors during the winter, and finally, an overview of Proven Winners’ newest introductions both perennials and shrubs.

In Conclusion: Proven Winners comes through again

Granted, the entire Idea Book is an advertisment for the company’s many plants and garden shrubs. Also, it should not be dismissed that none of their plants are natives, and the proliferation of cultivated garden plants is threatening the very existence of many of our native plants. Nevertheless, there still is a place in our gardens for these plants, especially the annuals that provide outstanding colour to our mostly-green woodland gardens. And, it’s not to say that just because these plants are non-native cultivars, they are of no value to wildlife such as pollinators, insects, etc. Many of these plants continue to attract hummingbirds and pollinators and quite possibly can be host plants for larvae. They just don’t usually do it as well as native plants.

So, by all means, use native plants whenever possible, but don’t be afraid to take advantage of the suggestions provided in the Proven Winners Idea Book and go with them.

I can almost guarantee that you will be impressed with the results.