(Saint Isidro's Sage) This hardy, lavender-blue-flowered Salvia comes from Southern Texas and has the same breeding as the famous Ultra Violet Autumn Sage. Although it needs warmer winter temperatures and has smaller foliage, it also does well in stressful conditions, including drought.
(Dorset Lavender Gentian Sage) Large, deep lavender flowers shaped like parrot beaks make Salvia patens 'Chilcombe' distinctive in the Gentian Sage group, which is dominated by true blues.
(Elk Crimson Spires Sage) Dark, dusky red stems and calyxes add to the drama of large scarlet flowers and lively green foliage in our FBTS hybrid, Salvia x ‘Elk Crimson Spires’.
(White Flame Sage) Like bright white candle flames, the short vigorously upright flower spikes of petite Salvia x ‘White Flame’ light up flowerbeds.
(Crimson Sage) Abundant and long blooming, the bright pink to red tubular flowers of Salvia henryi attract hummingbirds and form a pretty contrast with fuzzy, silvery foliage. This is a long blooming sage that is made for gritty soils, such as sandy loam.
Hummingbirds in the Garden |
1. How David Verity Cuphea Became a Famous Hummingbird Flower |
When massed in borders or standing out as a main attraction in a container planting, Cuphea x ‘David Verity’ is a visual feast for people as well as an actual feast for small wildlife. Rich in nectar, the plant’s dainty, cigar-shaped, orange-red flowers nestle amid a cloud of mid-green leaves shaped like tiny garden trowels. |
2. Annual Salvias that Hummingbirds Adore |
If a hummingbird could talk, he or she would tell you it's hard work packing for a long journey. Consuming mightily from dawn to dusk, day after day, hummingbirds double their weight before migration. They can't afford to run out of fuel before their next meal. To help hummingbirds, particularly on their northward journey, home gardeners can celebrate the arrival of spring by planting gardens filled with early blooming Salvias and companion plants that are excellent annuals in areas where winters are too chilly for survival as perennials. |
Cultivating Color |
3. Cultivating Color: Tracking the Elusive History of Autumn & Mountain Sage Warm Pastel Hybrids -- Part I |
Whether planned or accidental, hybrids happen. This is especially true among the closely related Southwestern and Mexican species of Autumn Sage (Salvia greggii) and Mountain Sage (S. microphylla). They are native to different areas of the Southwest and Mexico, but cross freely when they meet. This story is the first installment in a two-part series initiating our Cultivating Color series. It involves the late Dr. Richard F. Dufresne, a Salvia specialist who helped us track the history of warm-colored S. x jamensis hybrids. |
4. Cultivating Color: Tracking the Elusive History of Autumn & Mountain Sage Warm Pastel Hybrids -- Part II |
Luminous Salvia x jamensis pastel flowers began warming up nursery catalogs in the late 1990s. Their journey from steep Mexican mountains to American and European gardens began in the mid-19th century with the discovery of Autumn Sage (Salvia greggii). This is the second post in a two-part article about these Jame Sage hybrids of Autumn and Mountain Sage (S. microphylla). It includes descriptions of ten favorite Jame Sages. |
Sage Experts |
5. Sage Experts: How Robin Middleton's Gardens Bloomed |
Sage Experts focuses on Salvia specialists -- both amateurs and professionals -- in settings ranging from home gardens to university laboratories. This article concerns Robin Middleton of Surrey, England, and his popular Robins Salvias website. The longtime horticulturist grows more than 100 Salvia species and cultivars in his garden and greenhouses. |
Salvia Small Talk |
6. Salvia Small Talk: Growing a Native Sage Garden |
Most native plant gardens encompass species native to the region or state in which a gardener lives. However, some native gardens -- such as the New England Wild Flower Society's famous Garden in the Woods -- are based on a broad variety of plants native across America. |
7. Texas and Southwestern Native Plants for Butterflies, Honeybees and Hummingbirds |
Many gardeners and wildlife lovers in states with recurrent drought choose to increase the number of native plants in their yards. This is especially true of Texas, where statewide drought began in 2010 and hasn't yet abated. Native plants appeal to local wildlife, including pollinators. To help gardeners from Texas and the Southwest who want to create wildlife habitat, Flowers by the Sea (FBTS) suggests Salvias appropriate for Texas and Southwest gardens. |
8. Salvia Summit III Meets at Tilden Regional Park in October |
Botanists, horticulturists and gardening enthusiasts who love the Salvia genus are invited to Salvia Summit III – a global conference taking place from Friday, October 7, to Sunday October 9, 2016 in Berkeley, California. Lectures will be held at the Environmental Education Center of Tilden Regional Park, which is on the Berkeley boundary of the 2,079-acre park. |
9. Salvia Soothes Eye, Heart and Honeybees in Remembrance Gardens |
In the days following the terrorist destruction of New York’s World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, one article in The New York Times focused on the recovery of 30 acres of gardens of the Battery Park City Parks Conservancy a few blocks south of where the Twin Towers once stood. |
Sacred Sages |
10. Sacred Sage: Salvia mellifera -- the Easiest California Native |
Long before the West Coast was colonized, California Indians used Black Sage ( Salvia mellifera Greene) for food and medicinal purposes. Today, it often is bundled in smudge sticks used like incense during purification rituals. Another reason to consider Black Sage sacred is that, among the state’s native plants, it is one of the most important sources of nectar for pollinators. Nineteenth century botanist and clergyman Edward Lee Greene made the plant’s botanical name official in 1892 when he was the first person to publish it in a scientific journal. Among California's native Salvias, it is the easiest to grow in home gardens. |
Sage Experts |
11. Sage Experts: Richard & Bracey Tiede Nurture Salvias & Community |
Love of gardening is partly about love of nurturance. Some gardeners nurture far more than their home landscapes; that's the case with Silicon Valley retirees Richard and Bracey Tiede. Through avid volunteerism in organizations such as the Master Gardeners of Santa Clara County, Western Horticultural Society and Pacific Horticulture Society, they are helping to popularize drought-tolerant Salvias and shape sustainable gardening practices in the West -- a part of the country constantly facing drought. |
12. Sage Experts: Nancy L. Newfield's Hummingbird Journey |
Renowned hummingbird bander Nancy Newfield of southern Louisiana shares her journey from 1970s stay-at-home mom to citizen scientist and one of the nation's leading hummingbird researchers. This is the first article in a three-part series about Newfield's work and gardens, which abound with Salvias to feed hungry hummingbirds that overwinter in her suburban yard near New Orleans. It includes plant lists and the Louisiana Winter Hummingbird Project tally of banded hummingbirds from 1979 to 2015. |
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