This is the second bitter cold snap that we’ve had in 2011, so as I walked through the greenhouse this morning and saw Stachys coccinea seedlings emerging, hardiness was definitely on my mind. This is a lovely perennial with soft sage-green leaves and red flowers. Hummingbirds are very fond of the flowers. I’ve seen it called “the ultimate hummingbird plant” on more than one website. The common name is Scarlet Hedge Nettle. We have grown it before, but a few years ago I decided to put it in the inactive file. I didn’t have good luck getting it through the winter and other people told me of similar failures.
Last summer, though, on a tour of Warren Nolan’s Pueblo garden, I saw it and it was beautiful, healthy and in full bloom in September. Warren said that he’s had great luck with it, that it had survived five years, including the difficult winter of 2010. I thought maybe he’d found a particularly hardy form of this plant and ask him where he got it. He said, “At Perennial Favorites.” That was interesting to me. We’ve always grown this plant from seed, but I asked him if I could take cuttings and he agreed. A couple months later I had 24 small plants of Warren’s Hedge Nettle. At the moment they’re outside in an unheated cold frame and I hope they survive the arctic blast we’re enduring this week.
I also ordered seeds of Stachys coccinea, thinking that it might be good to trial a number of them again. I want this plant to be hardy. Besides being attractive to hummingbirds, it is very deer and rabbit resistant. It blooms an incredibly long time, starting in late May and continuing until hard frost in the fall. In the greenhouse there are about 70 seedlings emerging and they look very happy at the moment. Will they be as winter hardy as the plant that grows in Warren’s garden? If not, why not? And why would a plant be hardy in Warren’s Pueblo garden but not in Rye? Pueblo is a town of extremes, and while it is hotter than Rye or Denver in the summer, it is often colder in the winter.
High Country Gardens, in Santa Fe, offers a drought tolerant selection of the Scarlet Hedge Nettle. http://www.highcountrygardens.com/catalog/product/92828/
Stachys coccinea is native to Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, and in Texas is often called Betony or Texas Betony. When I read about this plant on a blog by a Texas gardener, they said it was hardy to Zone 7 and needs moderate water. http://hillcountrymysteries.blogspot.com/2010/01/texas-betony-stachys-coccinea.html
The more I researched this, the less I knew. Is it drought tolerant? Winter hardy? A number of nurseries that offer this for sale, including Bluestone Perennials, say that it does best in part shade, but in the Pueblo garden it was flourishing in full hot sun. I only know two things for sure: it blooms an incredibly long time, and hummingbirds love it. I hope to have more answers for you next year.
I didn’t take a picture of this in Warren’s garden and I’m kicking myself. The links above have nice images, and I found the one below on Wikipedia. It doesn’t look very “in character” to me. Maybe it’s because it is growing in a shady forest location and when I saw it in Pueblo it was in the hot sun.
