Description:

A lovely, wonderfully fragrant plant featuring perfumed fuzzy foliage, and continuous lavender bell flowers, on arching stems in spring through summer; grows best in coastal sun, or part shade inland; an elegant addition to gardens or borders

Ornamental Features

El Tigre Fragrant Pitcher Sage features showy racemes of fragrant lavender bell-shaped flowers with burgundy calyces at the ends of the branches from mid spring to late summer. The flowers are excellent for cutting. It has attractive grayish green foliage with gray undersides and tinges of silver which emerges burgundy in spring. The fuzzy oval leaves are highly ornamental and remain grayish green throughout the winter.

Landscape Attributes

El Tigre Fragrant Pitcher Sage is a multi-stemmed evergreen shrub with an upright spreading habit of growth. Its average texture blends into the landscape, but can be balanced by one or two finer or coarser trees or shrubs for an effective composition.

This shrub will require occasional maintenance and upkeep, and should only be pruned after flowering to avoid removing any of the current season's flowers. It is a good choice for attracting bees and hummingbirds to your yard, but is not particularly attractive to deer who tend to leave it alone in favor of tastier treats. It has no significant negative characteristics.

El Tigre Fragrant Pitcher Sage is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• Accent
• Mass Planting
• Border Edging
• General Garden Use
• Container Planting

Planting & Growing

El Tigre Fragrant Pitcher Sage will grow to be about 4 feet tall at maturity, with a spread of 4 feet. It has a low canopy with a typical clearance of 1 foot from the ground. It grows at a medium rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for approximately 20 years.

This shrub does best in full sun to partial shade. You may want to keep it away from hot, dry locations that receive direct afternoon sun or which get reflected sunlight, such as against the south side of a white wall. It is very adaptable to both dry and moist growing conditions, but will not tolerate any standing water. It is considered to be drought-tolerant, and thus makes an ideal choice for xeriscaping or the moisture-conserving landscape. This plant will benefit from an application of bonemeal and/or mycorrhizal fertilizer at the time of planting. It is not particular as to soil type or pH, and is able to handle environmental salt. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution. This is a selection of a native North American species.

El Tigre Fragrant Pitcher Sage makes a fine choice for the outdoor landscape, but it is also well-suited for use in outdoor pots and containers. With its upright habit of growth, it is best suited for use as a 'thriller' in the 'spiller-thriller-filler' container combination; plant it near the center of the pot, surrounded by smaller plants and those that spill over the edges. It is even sizeable enough that it can be grown alone in a suitable container. Note that when grown in a container, it may not perform exactly as indicated on the tag - this is to be expected. Also note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden.