Penstemon Garnet (Beardtongue)

One of the longest living Penstemon hybrids, award-winning Penstemon 'Garnet' or 'Andenken an Friedrich Hahn' is a bushy semi-evergreen perennial with gracefully arching spikes, densely packed with garnet-red trumpet-shaped flowers revealing red-striped throats. Its smooth, narrow, dark green foliage is finer than most penstemons. The flowers give way to charming seedpods.

• On display from early summer through fall, this Penstemon grows vigorously to 24-36 in. tall (60-90 cm) and 12-18 in. wide (30-45 cm) and adds lovely vertical lines to the landscape.
• Recipient of the prestigious Award of Garden Merit of the Royal Horticultural Society
• Provides a bold and striking impact in beds, borders, cottage gardens, rock gardens, or in prairie plantings. Ideal for naturalistic planting schemes. Good as cut flowers too!
• Best grown in full sun or partial shade, in fertile, dry to medium moisture, well-drained soils. Tolerates almost any soil including dry soils. Drought tolerant once established. Dislikes damp conditions and needs excellent drainage! Penstemons need very little water and barely any fertilizer. Fertilize lightly when planting and then never again. Over-fertilizing Penstemons leads to excessive dieback in the winter.
• Attracts scores of hummingbirds, butterflies, and other beneficial pollinators but is resistant to deer and rabbits.
• Generally disease free. May be attacked by slugs, snails, glasshouse red spider mite, and leaf and bud eelworms
• Propagate by softwood cuttings in early summer or semi-hardwood cuttings in midsummer. Propagate by division in spring.
• Deadhead after flowering to maintain vigor. Then cut back to base in early spring