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Galvezia speciosa 'Pink Panther' (Pink Island Snapdragon) – A new color form of our California native red flowering Island Snapdragon. This sub-shrub forms a dense mound with arching stems reaching to 3 feet high by 4 to 5 feet and possibly taller if provided with support. Though a much shyer to flower, this pink form rewards gardeners with a new color from this familiar shrub, displaying from spring through fall its tubular 1 inch long pink flowers that are flared at the lip, resembling small snapdragon flowers.
Plant in full sun to moderate shade in well-drained soil. It is drought tolerant, especially if planted in shade, and hardy to about 20-25 degrees F. A tough very adaptable plant that can be hedged or even pruned annually to its crown at ground level in late winter to keep the foliage fresh and its size down. The species is native to rocky canyons and bluffs in coastal sage scrub below 3,000 feet on San Clemente and Santa Catalina Island and in the Santa Barbara Channel Islands with a disjunct population on Guadalupe Island off of Baja California. It is included in the CNPS Inventory of Rare and Endangered Plants on list 1B.2 (rare, threatened, or endangered in CA and elsewhere). This new pink form, introduced by Annie's Annuals Nursery in Richmond, California was discovered in one of their customer's gardens and it joins the other two red two cultivars generally available in the horticultural trade; 'Firecracker', introduced by Tree of Life Nursery in 1986 and Galvezia speciosa 'Bocarosa', which we also grow, that was selected by the Saratoga Horticultural Foundation in 1980. The "new" name as listed in the Jepson Manual for this species is Gambelia speciosa but we choose to continue to list this plant by its more familiar older name for the time being so not to confuse staff and customers with a name change of such a familiar plant. We purchased our stock plants from Annie's Annuals Nursery and grew and sold this cultivar starting in 2016. Though we liked the color of this plant's flowers, it so rarely flowered that we decided to discontinue growing it in 2019.
This information about Galvezia speciosa 'Pink Panther' displayed is based on research conducted in our horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We also will relate observations made about it as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments that we receive from others and we welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they can share any cultural information that would aid others in growing it.
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