“The genus of the sages is vast and includes a high proportion of rubbish… However, that still leaves a great deal to preoccupy us.” Christopher Lloyd
Pliny the Elder was the first to use the term “salvia,” derived from salvare, to save or heal, and salvs, whole or uninjured. The common name, “sage,” was used in England to refer to Salvia officinalis, which was used as a “simple” or household remedy. Herbal wisdom claims, “Sage helps the nerves and by its powerful might, palsy is cured and fever put to flight.”
Salvia officinalis is our culinary sage, with handsome, gray felted leaves that emit a delicious fragrance when bruised. It is a low-growing perennial that will produce blue flowers in June. Cultivars with variegated foliage of purple, pink, white, and chartreuse are striking in the garden but will not survive our winters.
The salvia family comprises over 900 species, including annuals, perennials, and shrubs. The perennial salvias are at their peak in May and June, and if kept dead-headed, will continue blooming throughout the summer. Often, when allowed to set seed the plants will sprawl, but new growth will emerge from the crown. When the older, unattractive branches are removed, the fresh foliage sends up another round of blooms.
In the woodlands of eastern Europe and Russia, the wild Salvia sylvestris is a perennial weed with a lax, horizontal habit. From this wilding, cultivars with better manners have been developed. ‘Ostfriesland’ (East Friesland) produces erect spikes of a violet blue. A hybrid, x superba ‘Mainacht’ (May Night), is low growing with dark violet flowers that often self-sow.
Salvia argentea develops a large basal leaf structure of silky silver that is the main value in the garden. It sends up a three-foot stalk with inconspicuous, pale flowers. Flower stalks should be removed before seeds are produced or the plant will fade away.
In September and October, a late-blooming perennial, Salvia azurea var. grandiflora, comes into flower. The blooms’ clear blue is very appealing, but the three to four-foot branches fall into neighboring plants and get lost.
My favorite perennial salvia is S. verticulata ‘Purple rain,’ introduced by Piet Oudolf in the 1990s. Only about two-feet tall, it sends out branches with plentiful, smoky purple blooms. I assume it was named after Prince’s great song of 1984, and whenever I notice it in the garden I hear him singing.
Purple rain, Purple rain, I only want to see you, Bathing in the purple rain.
There are hundreds of salvias that are not hardy in our zone 5 gardens. The two most familiar, Salvia slendens and S. farinacea are the least exciting, holdovers from the Victorian gardening style of carpet bedding or mass plantings of low annuals. The brilliant red and rigid growing habit of S. splendens have made it a pariah to some gardeners. Ruth Rogers Clausen and Nicholas Eckstrom wrote that it is “not only ugly in its own right, it is often used in insensitive and inappropriate combinations” and Vita Sackville-West claimed its use “should be forbidden by law to all but the most skillful handlers.” S. farinacea, mealy sage, has short spikes of blue or white blooms that appear measly when compared to other salvias.
I am partial to blue flowers. When I first encountered the gentian blue, the cobalt blue, the indigo blue, the true blue of Salvia patens, I would have had my socks knocked off if I had been wearing any. Not only is the color fantastic, the structure of the blossom is sculptural. The flower is comprised of an upper hood that curves over two protruding stamens and a wide hinged lower lip that emerges from a green calyx. This beauty, native to the mountains of Mexico, was introduced in 1838. The pugnaciously opinionated Irish gardener, William Robinson, claimed S. patens is “doubtless, the most brilliant [bloom] in cultivation, being surpassed by and equaled by few other flowers.”
Many of the tender salvias are valuable in the late summer garden when they are in their prime. Salvia x indigo spires was discovered in Huntington Botanical Gardens as a spontaneous sterile hybrid. Its long wands of dark blue are borne on five-foot plants. S. guarantica, the anise-scented sage from Mexico, is available as pure blue of ‘blue ensign’ or pale blue of ‘Argentine skies.’ ‘Black and blue’ has an almost black calyx holding the blue bloom.
Of all the mid-sized salvias, my favorite is S. x Silke’s dream, which produces foot-long sprays with deep coral flowers from June until frost. As with most salvias, hummingbirds visit this dream daily.
There is a salvia that is a true annual that I haven’t grown for years. S. vridis, a native of the Mediterranean areas, is grown not for its blooms, but for the colorful bracts that cover the tiny flowers. Marbled variegation of white combined with blue, pink, or rose are effective in masses.
Two very late bloomers are extremely welcome at the end of the growing season and should be planted in pots so that they can be moved indoors when the frosts begin. S. elegans, pineapple sage from Mexico, has foliage that smells like its nickname and by early fall it produces scarlet red flowers with protruding stamens and pistil. S. confertiflora from Brazil can reach four feet with long wands covered with red-brown velvet and small rusty orange flowers.
After tender salvias are blackened by a hard frost, I cut the plants down, dig up the roots, and plant them in pots. I store the pots in my cool basement for the winter, watering every few weeks. By early spring, they begin to sprout, even in the dark. They know that the cycle begins again.
“There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature -- the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.” -- Rachel Carson
September 2018
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