Salvia 'Pink Pong'
🔹 Family: Lamiaceae
🔹 Origin: Horticultural cultivar

Resulting from meticulous selections, Salvia 'Pink Pong' is a recent variety that seduces with its abundant pink flowering and its elegant shape. Its name, evoking a game of bounce and movement, reflects the energy it brings to the garden.

Discovering Salvia 'Pink Pong'
With its intense pink flowers and finely aromatic foliage, Pink Pong brightens up flowerbeds, borders and pots from spring until the first cold weather. This sage is a real pollinator magnet and a valuable ally for a lively and colorful garden.

Morphological description
🔸 Shape: Bushy and flexible, reaching 80 cm to 1 m in height for a similar span.
🔸 Foliage: Semi-evergreen, soft green to dark green, slightly embossed and perfumed when crushed.
🔸 Flowers: Bright pink, sometimes tinged with lighter or darker reflections depending on the exposure, grouped in upright spikes.
🔸 Stems: Thin, square and slightly woody at the base over time.

Flowering
🔹 Flowering period: From May to October, with a generous regrowth if it is regularly pruned.
🔹 Attractiveness: Very nectariferous, it attracts bees, butterflies and bumblebees, thus promoting biodiversity.

Hybrids and related varieties
Close to certain varieties such as Salvia microphylla 'Cerro Potosí' or Salvia 'Joy', it shares with them a generous flowering and a beautiful hardiness.

Adaptation and ecology
💧 Exposure: Sun to light partial shade, but flowering is more intense in full sun.
🌱 Soil: Well-drained, light, rich in humus, but it tolerates poorer and drier soils once well established.
❄️ Hardiness: Resists up to -8°C to -10°C with winter protection in colder regions.

It can be grown in pots and brought into a greenhouse or veranda in winter in harsh climates.

Cultivation and maintenance
🔸 Planting: Preferably in spring or autumn, spacing the plants about 50 cm apart.
🔸 Watering: Moderate, more frequent in dry periods. Once established, it tolerates a lack of water well.
🔸 Pruning: Light pruning after the first flowering encourages a comeback. A more severe pruning at the end of winter encourages branching and renewal of foliage.
🔸 Fertilization: Adding compost or organic fertilizer in the spring boosts flowering.

Uses in the garden
🌸 In a clump: Magnificent alongside grasses (Stipa tenuissima), echinacea or yarrow.
🪴 In a pot: Ideal on a sunny terrace or balcony.
🌿 In a low hedge: Perfect in association with other Mediterranean sages and perennials for a natural and abundant effect.

Anecdote and little extra
Its name evokes play and movement, just like its flowers which seem to bounce on their thin stems at the slightest breath of wind. A sage full of vitality, perfect for a dynamic and easy-to-maintain garden!