Salvias To Love

If you are aiming for flower-filled borders all summer long, aim straight for the salvia displays in your local nursery and be prepared to be wowed!

To pick just five salvias is hard as this is a massive genus in the mint family which includes annuals and perennials grown for ornamental reasons, as well as for culinary and medicinal use. There is even a hallucinogen (luckily not cultivated locally), thrown into the mix. To complicate matters further, we also have our own range of indigenous salvia species which are just as desirable.

Salvia leaves vary from rough and serrated, to smooth and glossy (some very aromatic) and you can pick from a wide flower colour range including reds, white, all shades of pink, dazzling blues, salmon, orange and the deepest of purple. Growth habits can be tall and towering or dwarf and bushy and their contribution to wildlife includes feeding nectar-eating birds and attracting butterflies.

Tanya’s choice of Sizzling Salvias

Salvia ‘Purple and Bloom’

A large-bodied plant up to 120cm high with deep-purple flowers and dark stems.

Salvia ‘Salmia Orange’

Grows up to 60cm high with unique orange flowers.

Salvia ‘Rockin’ Fuchsia’

An award winner with fuchsia flowers and a black calyx. Size 60 x 60cm.

Salvia ‘Salmia Pink’

Another in the ‘Salmia’ range with bright pink flowers on maroon stems.

Salvia ‘Roman Red’

The only vibrant red interspecific salvia on the market, with a semi-mounded growth habit and a mature size of 85 x 90cm.

Perennial salvias in a nutshell

• Sun-lovers – a little afternoon shade is not detrimental.
• Climate adaptable – where winters are extreme, replace with fresh plants in spring.
• Fast growing – these salvias will not make you wait for a long floral performance from early spring until late autumn.
• Re-blooming – a light trim after a good flowering flush will encourage more blooms.
• Soil tolerance – any soil type will do as long as it drains well and is enriched with compost.
• Disease tolerance – the plants are not plagued by pests and diseases if the correct growing conditions are followed.
• Water usage – they can be quite drought tolerant when well established with medium water requirements, but do not stress them too much by keeping them too dry.

How to use salvias

Perennial salvias combine well with other summer-flowering plants in billowing, traditional borders, in gardens where grasses are dominant, and in mixed summer containers.

READ MORE: If you are looking for other summer flowers to add your garden, check out these pink summer flowers.