By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Salvia darcyi, shown here, would have been fun to have in my garden for Independence Day.  The Fourth is a big deal in Huntington Beach, Calif., where I live. 

Our annual parade attracts 250,000 or so viewers every year.  It's the largest Independence Day parade west of the Mississippi.

Houses are decorated in red, white, and blue for the occasion.  People dress in those colors.  And gardens also sport those hues.

Most people just put in annuals.  But picture a bolder perennial approach.  Start with this broad stroke of red Salvia darcyi.  Add a few clumps of white Shasta daisy.  And finish with Trachymene coerulea (blue lace flower.)  Now that would be a show! Maybe I'll try it next year.

If I don't try another suggestion Betsy Clebsch makes in The New Book of Salvias instead. The red of S. darcyi flowers has the capacity to blend with any other red near it, she says, whether that be orange-red or magenta-red.  So maybe I'll plant this firecracker red in front of my nearly maroon-red block wall and add some  burgundy-flowered Pelargonium sidoides and 'Paprika' yarrow and brave an all-red border, something I've always wanted to try.

What would you do?

S. darcyi grows in Sunset zones 8, 9, 12, and 14-24.  It has upright growth to 3-4 feet and spreads by stolons to nearly as wide.  It has light green triangular shaped leaves and whorls of coral-red blossoms.  They begin blooming in late spring or early summer and continue until late fall. This perennial will die back to the ground in winter in many of above zones, but it grows back rapidly in the spring.

This photograph was taken at Randy Baldwin's residential garden in Santa Barbara near wholesale nursery San Marcos Growers.