A New Age of Salvia

One of five Salvia gardens grew next to the benches along the hill

If you visited our Display Beds this year you saw a lot of Salvias—a lot of cultivars with a lot of changes. We planted over 20 different varieties across five beds, the most we have done. Now, when we say changes we aren’t talking about small variances in color or size. These are significant movements into new hybrids and better specimens all around. In our opinion, the breeders have given us a New Age of Salvia.

A couple of decades ago, these choices didn’t exist. Salvias of the world were easily divided into two camps: the perennials like ‘May Night’ and ‘Caradonna’, and the annuals like the Vista series and ‘Victoria Blue’. Anything in-between was considered odd, or odds-n-ends. Back in those days the choices were snoozy, but we can’t say that anymore.

Velvety gray Sage leaves are like those of Lamb’s Ear

Standard garden Sage, the type we sell as a culinary herb, has interesting Ornamental foliage. Leaves are velvety gray—like those we find on Lamb’s Ear—but they decorate the bushy framework of an herbaceous perennial that grows about 24-inches square.

Sage does grow slowly, taking steady, measured steps on its journey to full size. Very hardy to zone 4 and nearly evergreen in the Cincinnati area, this herb emerges valiantly from the worst of a mean winter, even one that knocks off all its leaves. Wet winter soil is the only problem we’ve seen—it rots out the roots. So long as the garden drains, you are good.

Garden Sage—an Ornamental for modern American designs

Stems are green in the first year but turn woody by the second, expanding the plant to its full bulk in about two to three years. By the fourth year, new leaf and stem production slows into a maintenance rhythm. Sage favors full sun, and drier, thin soil like the type found surrounding its native Mediterranean and south European range. It can handle partial shade also.

Culinary Sage is already known as an Ornamental in traditional garden designs like herb knots, cottage gardens, and English gardens, but we think it has a place in modern American designs as well.

Our hillside Begonia garden—the trick is in the height

If you have a garden on a hillside, stripe it with Begonias—the trick isn’t in the colors but in the height. Here’s the two-step formula we used here:

• Top row = tall begonias from the Dragon Wing series
• Bottom row = small begonias from the BabyWing series

This trick works because the Dragon Wings make the top of the hill even higher, and the BabyWings make the bottom even lower. It exaggerates the garden’s slope so the presentation is more dramatic. Choose your colors, and you are done.

In this garden, we underlined the very bottom of the hill with Ipomoea SolarPower, a dark and tightly growing sweet potato vine that stays bushy and doesn’t crawl very much.