A patch of purple in autumn is always welcome, especially if you can cut the flowers for the house. Salvia viridis commonly known as Clary Sage is easily grown from seed. In my garden they are usually over by the first really hard frosts which luckily haven’t arrived yet.
Salvias like the sun. Salvia viridis originates in the Mediterranean so performs best in sheltered positions ideally in full sun for at least 7 or 8 hours a day with that magic ingredient fertile well drained soil. This one is grown as an annual… sow seeds in spring during March/April/May for flowering 12 weeks later. They usually flower for a good three months. As with most annual cut flowers the more you cut the longer they flower.
In September I saw a beautiful border in the shelter of the walled garden at Arley Hall in Cheshire. The gardeners there have combined tall perennial Salvias with Verbena bonariensis to create a stunning display. If you love bold planting… how about this for a planting scheme?
The pale blue salvia is Salvia uliginosa and the deep purple plant is the new Salvia Amistad. I’m not sure what the pink and red cultivar names are. These perennial salvias come from South America, exotic places like Mexico so they are not fully hardy here. In mild winters they may survive outside if well protected but I recommend taking plenty of cuttings to raise new plants for next year… just in case.
I am definitely growing more of these next year.
Do you grow Salvias? Gillian 🙂
Lovely salvias. I do like them and have a few perennial ones. They don’t do very well though in my garden, though.
I used to grow a lot more… now I just have the purple one (new this year) Spotting this lovely bed full of colour at Arley Hall got me thinking about them again. How do you keep yours going through the winter Annette?
I think I must only have hardy varieties as they were all bought in garden centres up here.
Lucky you! I always fall for the delicate ones. Although we have mild winters here it is often very wet and Salvias simply hate sitting in water. I take loads of cuttings of all my half hardy plants so if the worst happens I have plenty of fresh young ones in spring. Gillian 🙂