This is a plume type of Celosia with red blooms. The catalog description says it has scarlet leaves. Have any of you grown it? Here is a link that might be useful: Celosia 'Red Flame'

Which is your favorite and why? I'm trying to pick just ONE red salvia greggii.

Answer to Jim: Thank you for your offer to get me some Pik Red seeds. I went ahead and ordered a couple packs from Ed Hume Seeds. This way I will probably get periodic adverts from him, and since the W. PA climate although colder in winter that you experience is just about as short a growing season as Washington state. All Hume's vegetable selections should be ideal for me here for that reason. By the way, Pittsburgh and Seattle vie for the distinction of having the most overcast days per year of any cities in the USA. Look it up if you find this hard to believe. Pittsburgh is the first large metro area South East of the Great Lakes, Lake Erie being the closest, that lies at the Western foothills of the Appalachian Mountains (they start about 30 miles east of Pittsburgh). The mountains act as a roadblock for weather froths coming through. Low hanging overcast weather fronts that come rolling in off the great lakes in a traditionallly South East direction are blocked by the Appalachian mountains and jam up over us here, giving us our abundance of cloudy days. Then as these moisture laden weather fronts are pushed by the wind from the North West, they must gain altitude to pass over the mountains. As they do they grow colder and are then forced to release their mositure as rain/snow. This is the reason so many people around here are cranky and iritable all the time. Few sunny days to lift up the spirits. Rootman thanks you again, for your kind offer.

There is some pink and in different times of day with different light you can see a little more... however the floors overall came out wonderful; it feels more uniform in tone and the combo we used didn't bring out the different grain which was important to us. Some of the other combos of darker stains highlighted the graining. I am happy with the outcome. I couldn't trust our floor person to do the Red Out or other sorts of preconditioning i.e.Nordic Seal. I wasn't sure of their level of training and the conversation didn't get further with trying those products. So this is just the 3:1 two coats of Duraseal fruitwood and country white. The 3:1 ratios is "easy" to get the ratios exact in case we need to do the stain again. Then 2 coats of water poly. I can't seem to get the photos to upload. Will have to try another time.