Sage Vice

Who can say at what number an enthusiasm or “keen interest” ends and a collection of plants begins? 20 hostas? 6 agaves? 114 daylilies?

When the genus is as diverse in leaf and flower as salvia, a collection interspersed throughout a garden may not even be noticed.

Salvia calcaliifolia
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leaves of Salvia calcaliifolia
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Australian hybrid ‘Wendy’s Wish’
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Salvia ‘Christine Yeo’
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Salvia wagneriana
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leaves of Salvia wagneriana
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leaves of Salvia karwinskii
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Salvia ‘Waverly’
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leaves of Salvia broussonetii
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Salvia chiapensis
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Beautiful plants for Southern California and other mediterranean climate zones.

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10 Responses to Sage Vice

  1. Ryan Miller says:

    I usually like big saturated colors in my flowers, but that Savlia ‘Waverly’ looks so graceful and refined. I love it!

  2. hoover says:

    I love the Salvias that don’t spread, but the ones that do are thugs. Lovely lovely photos…as usual.

  3. Denise says:

    Ryan, Waverly is such a good plant, nearly in bloom year round for hummers.
    LD, my words exactly!
    Hoov, if you haven’t blogged on the thugs, please do!

  4. hoover says:

    The Thug Of Thugs is ‘Black And Blue’, so gorgeous, so aggressive, and the species that spawned it, equally beautiful and just as tenacious. I continue to pull them out. They continue to return. I did blog it, “The Salvia From Hell” though just briefly. The post was hijacked by a Yucca. Salvia cacaliifolia I dug out completely due to unavoidable and urgent irrigation repair, and it has returned with a vengence, but is not endanagering anything. Yet. I would not put it in the ‘Black And Blue’ level.

  5. Kathy says:

    Argentinian Skys was my Salvian-thug; though Black and Blue does travel here it also dies completely down to the ground and disappears over the winter, which seems to slow it’s march .I simply dig a bit around the perimeter of the patch in spring and it seems to keep it somewhat in bounds.

  6. Denise says:

    Kathy & Hoov, it’s true that S. guaranitica, species and hybrids, can be trouble, especially when grown in the rich conditions you rose-growers maintain. Same issues with the bog sage, S. uliginosa. But both have petered out in my garden. Leaving out those two, there’s still lots of good salvias left to choose from and some fine, but twitchy, Calif. native salvias too (talking about you, S. pachyphylla)

  7. Grace says:

    Ooh, I love Salvias but many of them don’t winter over successfully in my climate. If only, it would go from “keen interest” to “collection” to OBSESSION real fast! 🙂

  8. Kermit says:

    Very fine pictures. Some plant groups – orchids, Salvias, Haworthias, (OK – Agaves) et. all are automatically excluded from any lumping into obsession. Don’t you think that should be the rule?

  9. Kermit says:

    I believe that “lumping into exclusion rules” are passé, and should be ignored. If one MUST exclude, Salvias, Haworthias, Aloes, Agaves, all orchids and probably Echevarias should get special exclusion from any and all rules.

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