Why Upright Salvia Is One Of The BEST Plants For Hummingbirds & Pollinators!

Let me introduce you to Selvia. It's an upright Selvia. This is an annual. There is also perennial, but it is a gorgeous addition to any planter or yard space, but give it room because you can see it gets pretty big, but this is the plant that you want. If you want to draw in those hummingbirds or the pollinators, the bees, the butterflies, this is it. There is almost always activity on the Selvia. In fact, as we're talking here, we'll probably have some visitors that will just come buzzing right in. You might see it. It's a beautiful plant that likes the full sun. So give it some space in a larger planter. Don't put this in a 12 inch planter. Cause this is planted in large troughs and it's what about waist? Yeah, they're well, yeah, but mid thigh for, for me and you can see, I, I can barely put my arm all the way across. It's probably a good three feet. It is, this is one plant here. There's another one in the, yeah, that that's kind of going out the front of it, but they get big, so you do need to have a big planter. And that means that they're going to drink more water. So when you're watering these, you want to make sure that they're, they have enough water, but not so much that they're soggy. Well, yeah, you don't want to overwater them, but they will drink a lot of water. So just remember that. And, um, they're not real dramatic in the heat of the day, um, but the leaves can droop a little bit if they're thirsty and that's how you know that, yeah, they they'll need a drink of water. And if they're overwatered, they tend to get that real yellowy. Yeah. Because when you're overwatering them, that's washing away the nutrients. But generally speaking, you probably won't overwater them. They will drink a lot, especially in the heat of the summer, but they are fantastic performers. They are. When you're planting them with other plants, they're really great. You can plant lower. Like we have a lot of stuff that's down lower. You just don't want anything competing because they will take over. So if you have something like a snap dragon or something that's not as aggressive, that's that taller plant, the salvia will win. Yeah. They'll squish them out. And there's a lot of great colors. Do you want to show them up close? Yeah. I'm going to scoot this in just so you can kind of see a little bit closer on the salvia. It has this tubular little flower and that's what the hummingbirds and those pollinators love, full of nectar. So it's a big source of food for them. But that is the salvia and there's several different colors. Let me just switch, switch hands here. So there is, we have what, five different colors here? So we have this darker burgundy. The magenta one. Magenta. Again, these, these first few have the tubular shape to them. That striking red color. There is a kind of a salmon-y pink color. And then this purple. And this is, it's totally different looking. This is the rock and plain, the blues, totally different looking than the other upright salvia. This is one, one of the best. We find there's just always bees and there's just lots of activity on this. They absolutely love this one. All of them are great, but that rock and plain and the blues from Proven Winters is just a fantastic for drawing in those, those bees and butterflies and the pollinators. As far as cleaning up, they're very low maintenance. We have not touched this all season. Full honesty. We planted this in June. We're into late July. So we're going well over a month and both of us are like, I haven't cut any. Have you? And no, we haven't touched it, but can you? Yeah, absolutely. Um, so if, if you get to the point where it has some, um, some stems like this that are, they're certainly done, go, go ahead and take a little shears. They're kind of a woody stem. So you can go through, uh, and knit that off. This is a brand new one. So you wouldn't want to cut this off. There are, um, blossoms ready to pop out of these little pods here. So don't cut this off. This is not done. Yeah. You can see that they pop out, um, of these little pods. So, so when they look like this, they're getting ready to actually flower. That's not the flower yet. It's actually, I'm going to just cut this so I can show. It actually looks like this when they're flowering. So very low maintenance, you know, make sure six plus hours of sunshine, you're watering, uh, they, they tend to drink a lot. So make sure that you're watering, fertilizing, fertilize about once a week with the BT neighbor fertilizer that keeps not only the plant growing in nice and strong roots, but flowering. So that we draw in those pollinators. Absolutely. And do you know who doesn't like Selvia? The deer. The deer don't like it. Generally speaking, it's pretty deer resistant. Yeah. Uh, they've, they've come along and they've munched on the Kufia they loved. Uh, there's a lot of other flowers, certainly the petunias, but they left the Selvia alone. Uh, they did not like it. That is a perk of all perks. Yeah. And this is like right, you know, right. The perfect height for them to feed off of. And they didn't, they have not touched our Selvia yet. So reminder, full sun, fertilize regularly. You clean up, periodic, periodic and enjoy them. Enjoy all the activity that's going on around it. And I know you can't see behind you, but there is right behind Scott. There is some hummingbirds that are just like, get out of my way. It's breakfast time. So we're going to head out of here and be able to watch, sit and watch all the activity going on. And it's so much fun. Great plant for in the yard. Again, this is the annual plant. So you're not going to overwinter this one. Nah, you're not going to bring it inside. This is one that you're just going to enjoy for the season. And they'll go, they'll go well into fall and that early, um, you know, right up until the frost time. So you can enjoy it from that early spring all the way till, uh, that first killing frost. Absolutely. All right. Thanks for joining us. Bye-bye.