The Garden Guy: October is Golden Delicious season, but we aren’t talking apples
October is the Golden Delicious season, and I am not talking apples. I am talking salvias and fattening up hummingbirds getting ready for the flight of their lives. If you are a flower garden lover, however, it's been Golden Delicious season since the first of May.
I’ve written on a couple of occasions about Rockin Golden Delicious, a lusciously fragrant and colorful, chartreuse selection of pineapple sage. Although the past couple of years have been so eye-opening for the Garden Guy and son, James, with the Eden Estate Management team. While I might equate it to earning a graduate degree in its artistic landscape application, deep down we are all kind of feeling like we are just beginning.
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Golden Delicious is known botanically as Salvia elegans. It is native to Mexico and Guatemala and found at altitudes from 6,000 to 9,000 feet. Proven Winners and the Missouri Botanical Garden suggest a hardiness range of zones 8 -10, but I see other gardeners and growers give testimony to zone 7. It has been suggested to grow with afternoon protection from direct sun, but you’ll find dozens of photos that prove otherwise. This is why, though this plant started winning awards in 2005, we are all part of a fun and rewarding research team that is still going in 2023. No matter where you live, annual or perennial, you have an invitation to get on board.
The awards have been piling up over the years ― Perfect Score here and there, Top Performer Awards throughout the country, Flame Proof Awards in Dallas and, one I particularly enjoy, Top Showy Ornamental Foliage and Edible Crops. So, if I may issue a challenge: Master Gardener groups everywhere, create us a recipe book of all the great uses of both flowers and foliage, from jams to jellies, candies to beverages, beef to poultry.
The Garden Guy, as you might think, is old school in his plantings of Rockin Golden Delicious pineapple sage. Mine are planted in complementary partnerships with blue Let’s Dance hydrangeas and colorful Soprano impatiens. So, in other words, a filtered-light environment. My plant is 4 years old, and I’m in zone 8a. This year in mid-March, we had an Arctic Blast for about five days where we got as low as 13 degrees. I expected to be replanting, but they came roaring back.
James and the Eden Estate Management team began planting theirs for clients the first week of May with partners such zinnias, Rising Sun Chestnut Gold rudbeckias, SunPatiens, Superbena Violet Ice verbena, and Heart to Heart Burning Heart caladiums. These partnerships allude to the fact they are practically in full sun. But in all of these plantings, including mine, we are playing off the foliage much like you would a coleus. But this is a salvia and will be perennial, if so desired, in our zone 8 location.
As I mentioned at the beginning, this is the Rockin Golden Delicious season for the scarlet red flowers and the rich nectar they will provide for remaining bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. The blooms come with the short days of fall and are produced with a reckless abandon, perhaps with a little look of a habitat. You have to admit though, this is an incredible way to finish the season, giving, until the first really hard frost puts it to sleep.
If you’ve given it well drained soil, added a little pine straw or mulch, it will be back in the spring. If you are in a colder zone, you’ll start over again when spring arrives.
Follow Norman Winter on Facebook @NormanWinterTheGardenGuy for more photos and garden inspiration. See more columns by Norman at SavannahNow.com/lifestyle/home-garden/.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Rockin Golden Delicious helps fatten hummingbirds for winter migration
