Summer Jewels Red Salvia is a compact, prolific flowering salvia that earned the 2011 All-America Selections Award for its stunning lipstick-red blooms and uniform growth habit. Reaching just 18 inches tall, this heirloom cultivar produces dense spikes of half-inch flowers that bloom within 50 days and persist through the season, making it one of the earliest salvias to flower. Hardy in zones 8-10 as a perennial and grown as an annual elsewhere, it thrives in full sun and attracts butterflies and hummingbirds with its vivid color.
Full Sun
Moderate
8-10
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High
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The real draw here is how reliably and uniformly this salvia performs. Baker Creek's award-winning selection produces dense, lipstick-red flower spikes so abundantly that the plant becomes a solid block of color by mid-summer. At just 18 inches tall with a naturally tidy habit, it needs no staking or fussy deadheading to look polished in beds, borders, or containers. The early bloom time, just 50 days from sowing, means you're rewarded with flowers while other salvias are still leafing out.
Summer Jewels Red Salvia serves as an ornamental bedding plant, border plant, and container specimen. Its compact 18-inch stature and uniform flowering habit make it especially useful in formal or structured garden layouts where consistent color and height are desired. The prolific blooms and nectar production also position it as a pollinator plant, deliberately sown to support butterflies and hummingbirds throughout the growing season.
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Start seeds indoors 6-8 weeks before your last spring frost. Sow at a soil temperature of 60-85 degrees Fahrenheit; seeds will germinate within 10-30 days. Sow shallowly, pressing seeds into soil at a depth of 1/16 inch. Keep soil moist but not waterlogged until seedlings emerge. Provide bright light once sprouted and maintain temperatures in the ideal range until transplanting.
Transplant seedlings outdoors after the last frost date when soil has warmed. Harden off seedlings by gradually exposing them to outdoor conditions over 7-10 days. Space plants 12 inches apart in full sun. Plant at the same depth they were growing in containers.
Summer Jewels Red has a naturally compact, tidy growth habit that requires minimal intervention. Pinching seedlings at the 2-3 leaf stage encourages branching and fuller plants. Deadheading spent flower spikes throughout the season keeps the plant flowering prolifically and prevents it from setting seed at the expense of new blooms. In zones 8-10 where it overwinters, cut back plants in late fall or early spring to encourage fresh growth.
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“Summer Jewels Red Salvia represents a modern refinement of Salvia coccinea, a species native to tropical and warm regions. Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds introduced this cultivar and submitted it to the All-America Selections judging panel, where it won recognition in 2011 specifically for its uniform growth, prolific and early flowering, and striking color consistency across plantings. The award validated what gardeners had already begun discovering: a reliably compact, floriferous salvia that brought order and impact to summer gardens without the temperamental nature of some heirloom salvias.”