Salvia microphylla 'Hot Lips'

Salvia microphylla 'Hot Lips' is the famous temperature-shifting bicolor of the littleleaf sages, and the trick is worth the fame. In the cool of spring the flowers may open pure white or pure red, but as summer heat builds they turn strikingly two-tone, white below with a bold red lip, so that a single plant can carry white, red, and red-and-white flowers all at once. The show runs from late spring until frost.

The small, glossy leaves that give the species its name carry the fresh, fruity, blackcurrant scent typical of the littleleaf sage when brushed, and that scent has a use of its own: in Mexico Salvia microphylla is known as mirto de monte, and the leaves are steeped into a refreshing blackcurrant-flavored tea, part of a long folk tradition set out in the fields below.

Fast, tough, and generous, 'Hot Lips' builds a rounded, twiggy shrub of two to four feet, drawing hummingbirds and bees through the whole long bloom and shrugging off heat and drought once established. A hard cut in late winter keeps the plant dense and floriferous.

Site Salvia microphylla 'Hot Lips' in full sun in well-drained soil, in a xeric border, a cottage garden, a pollinator bed, or a large container, where the shifting red-and-white flowers can be watched up close. Pair with warm-season grasses, other salvias, and subtropical companions in dry, low-water plantings, and give a sheltered spot at the cold edge of the range.