Salvia ‘Frieda Dixon’: an upright perennial 80cm -1mH with pink flowers in summer and pineapple tinted fragrant leaves.
Salvia ‘Frieda Dixon’: was originally known as the Pink form of Pineapple Sage.
Flowers: are narrow tubular form, a strawberry pink colour with exerted stigma and stamens, which make the corolla look longer. The lower lobes are slightly paler, all small with the middle lobe turned down to act as a landing place for bees and insects.
Flowering stems are long, green and slightly hairy. Flowering in spring through out summer, , these stems are held above the foliage to attract passing bees and birds. Only the small Eastern Spinebill is small enough to try and enter the long tubular flowers.
Calyces: are green, slightly hairy, ribbed with slightly pointed lobes. These are held in small whorls of 4 flowers, in regular intervals along the stem. When flowers are finished, they generally fall off leaving a green flower stem to be cut off when the plant is dead headed.
Leaves: are a pale yellow green colour, narrower than the parent with a thin texture, slightly hairy, veination is clear and small crenulations along the edges.
Salvia ‘Frieda Dixon’: has a more shrubby growth, but still has perennial growth also with elbows along the stems. This grows well in a sheltered sunny position.
Grow with other small shrub and perennials in hues of purples, blues and other pink coloured flowers with in a mixed border or small garden beds.
At the end of the flowering season, all spent flower stems to be removed, long stems to be trimmed down to a good green bud to keep the shrub bushy.
Feed and mulch well to keep the root area warm during the cold winter months.
In spring when new growth appears, feed again and top up mulch to keep the root area cool for the hot dry summer season.
Propagation: is easy either by tip cuttings through out the year, or new spring growth or by layering long shoots which should root easily.
Occasionally available