Three of My Favourite Salvias

One of my favourite groups of perennial flowers that can be found in any nursery are the Salvias. There is a such a large variety of these tough and long flowering popular garden staples that it’s easy to find one that suits your needs in the garden- there are literally hundreds to choose from. From small salvias barely 10cm high to bush salvias that can reach almost 2m high, there’s a salvia to brighten up almost any spot. These are some of my favorites that are widely available.

Small Salvias: Salvia nemerosa ‘Ostfriesland’ 

This is a salvia that only grows to about 15cm high x 10cm wide (8” x 5”), but the flowers grow on spikes that can extend up to 20-30cm (10”-15”) above the plant. The leaves are small, light green and covered on soft, fine hairs that give off a pleasant aroma when handled. They’ll begin flowering in mid- to late spring depending on the weather and if you deadhead them after the flowers are spent they can continue reliably producing new flowers throughout the summer and well into autumn. I have an area under a birdbath that is planted with Salvia Ostrfriesland and they’ve been flowering non stop for 7 months. They’re a terrific border plant and work well in cottage gardens and mixed gardens where you need an accent of floral colour that will last for months.  

Medium-Sized Salvia: Salvia ‘Mystic Spires’

This is a medium-sized salvia, growing from 40-60cm high x 20-40cm wide, with flowers growing on spikes an additional 20cm higher. When not in flower their tall, narrow stems with dark green leaves make an attractive perennial for the middle to back of garden beds. When the deep purple flowers arrive on tall spikes in mid-summer they can really add a beautiful contrast of colour to a garden bed and their tall spikes create lovely movement, even in light breezes. They will continue to flower for the rest of the summer and through to autumn if it’s warm enough. 

Large Bush Salvia: Salvia ‘Limelight’

This large salvia grows to about 1.5-2m high x 1-1.2m wide if you include the heights of the flowers (5’-6’ high x 3’-4’ wide) but I don’t usually let them get that large because I manage their size with pruning. This salvia’s rounded bushy form can fill a large space in a a garden bed and they can look good planted as an individual specimen in a bed or planted en masse. Before they flower, they put up large, bright green spires before the purple flowers emerge. They can flower from summer to early winter and a heavy prune in winter can help them keep a nicer dense, bushy habit. They tolerate brief, light frosts but their damage in heavier frosts can be pruned away and they’ll recover in spring.

The huge variety of salvias available in size, shape and flower colour means that they can be used in any number of ways to solve a problem in a garden. Using different sized salvias in informal garden bed planting schemes can help create to create unique areas of colour that can be used as focal points in a garden bed or to impart a sense of contrast to a densely planted garden bed. This contrast can be used in informal garden beds to create a sense of structure, avoiding the pitfalls of a garden that feels crowded or overplanted.

Aside from their year-round interest and long life as a perennial in a garden setting, salvias are also valuable as wonderful pollinator attractors. Even on cold, rainy days in the Blue Mountains you can find them being visited by bees, butterflies and even the smaller nectar-feeding native birds when in flower. Pruning them down quite hard in late autumn/early winter will ensure that they maintain a nicer, denser form and produce an abundance of flowers in the following year.

Contact New Terrain Landscape Design to see how we can help you to create a beautiful landscape that works for you.