Here is a salvia that wants what salvias are not supposed to want. Most of the genus comes from sunbaked Mediterranean hillsides, dry Mexican mountains, and dusty California chaparral, so that the very word Salvia is shorthand for full sun, gravelly soil, and a watering regime closer to neglect than care. Salvia koyamae, endemic to the cool wooded slopes of Honshu in Japan, breaks every rule, asking instead for shade, moist humus-rich woodland duff, and the cool morning light that filters through a deciduous canopy. This is, in short, the salvia to grow where hostas would otherwise go.
Salvia leucantha, the Mexican bush sage, is one of the great fall salvias, grown for arching wands of flower that seem spun from felt. Long spikes rise above the foliage in late summer and fall, densely packed with velvety purple calyces from which small white corollas emerge, a soft two-tone effect that catches low autumn light and holds for weeks. Few plants close the gardening year with such generous, easy color.
Salvia leucantha 'Midnight' is the all-purple form of the Mexican bush sage, and the difference is worth seeing. Where the common kind carries small white corollas against purple calyces, 'Midnight' drops the white altogether, so the long arching spikes read as pure, saturated purple from calyx to flower, a deeper and more solid color that carries even further across an autumn garden.
Salvia 'Anthony Parker' is a big, late-blooming hybrid sage with a charming South Carolina origin. The plant arose as a chance seedling in the Beaufort garden of the plantswoman Frances Parker, a cross between Salvia leucantha 'Midnight' and the pineapple sage Salvia elegans, and Frances rescued the young seedling from the path of the mower and named it for her grandson Anthony, then a year old, in 1994. From that lucky reprieve came one of the best late-season salvias for the South.
Salvia littae, Litta's purple sage, is a bold, late-flowering Mexican salvia from the cool cloud forests of Oaxaca, grown for thick, plush spikes of fuzzy, purplish-pink to magenta flowers that open when the gardening year is nearly done. On stout spikes a foot or more long, the densely felted blooms have a rich, tactile quality unusual even among salvias, and the color glows in the low light of late autumn.
Salvia madrensis, the forsythia sage, is a big, robust perennial from the mountains of Mexico, grown for a late-season show of soft yellow. Broad, quilted, triangular leaves clothe stout, square, mint-family stems, and in fall the plant lifts terminal clusters of clear yellow flowers that recall a forsythia in bloom and give the sage its common name, an unusual color and a welcome one so late in the year.
Salvia melissodora, the grape-scented sage, is a woody Mexican shrub grown for a scent as much as a flower, since the small lavender-blue blooms carry an unmistakable perfume of grape soda that drifts on warm air. Native to the Sierra Madre from Chihuahua south to Oaxaca, at four to eight thousand feet, the plant flowers in long spikes from late spring right through to frost, an exceptionally long and fragrant season.
Salvia mexicana, the big blue Mexican sage, is a tall, dramatic perennial grown for deep, saturated blue-violet flowers that arrive when the gardening year is winding down. The tubular blooms, set in contrasting calyces, are carried in long spikes above bold, heart-shaped leaves, and few plants bring so pure and deep a blue to the autumn garden.
Woodlander's George Mitchell found, named, and propogated. This is brightly varigated form of this large leaf growing sage. It holds up well in sun and produces the same deep violet flowers just before frost.
Large growing perennial salvia with relatively large leaves and bushy habit of growth. Pretty terminal racemes of blue flowers. From sunny rocky streamside location. Tucuman Province.
Salvia microphylla 'Lutea' is an uncommon yellow-flowered form of the littleleaf or baby sage, a small woody shrub of the mountains of Mexico and the borderlands. Where the species carries the usual salvia scarlet or orange-red, 'Lutea' opens soft, pale yellow flowers instead, a quiet and unusual color on a plant otherwise known for hot tones, and blooms over a long season from late spring into fall.
Salvia microphylla 'Deltoid' is a shrubby form of the littleleaf or baby sage grown for warm salmon-coral flowers and neat, triangular, deltoid leaves. The small tubular blooms open over a long season and read as a soft coral against the fine, glossy foliage, a gentler tone than the hot scarlet of many littleleaf sages.
Salvia microphylla 'Hot Lips' is the famous temperature-shifting bicolor of the littleleaf sages, and the trick is worth the fame. In the cool of spring the flowers may open pure white or pure red, but as summer heat builds they turn strikingly two-tone, white below with a bold red lip, so that a single plant can carry white, red, and red-and-white flowers all at once. The show runs from late spring until frost.
Salvia puberula, the downy sage, is a big, late-flowering Mexican sage grown for tall spikes of deep magenta-pink flowers that open when the year is nearly done. The blooms are large, nearly four inches long, gathered in showy clusters atop the spikes, and the color is rich and saturated, glowing at a season when little else is in flower. The spikes cut well for the vase.
Salvia uliginosa, the bog sage, is an airy, sky-blue perennial grown for clouds of clear, cool blue flowers held on tall, slender, branching stems from midsummer into fall. The species name uliginosa means of marshes, and the plant lives up to it, thriving in the moist ground most sages refuse, so the bog sage fills a niche few others in the genus can.
Salvia urticifolia, the nettleleaf sage, is an uncommon herbaceous perennial native to the Appalachians and the wider Southeast, grown for cool blue-to-violet flowers set off by a pair of white marks in the throat. The bloom comes in the freshness of mid to late spring, the flowers hovering above serrated, nettle-like leaves, and in a generous year a lighter second flush may follow in late summer.
Salvia 'Phyllis Fancy' is a vigorous, large hybrid sage with a good pedigree, found as a chance seedling at the University of California, Santa Cruz Arboretum and named for a longtime volunteer there. The parentage is thought to involve Salvia leucantha, the Mexican bush sage, and possibly Salvia chiapensis, though the cross has never been confirmed.
Very choice double flowered form of the Bloodroot. Colony forming woodland wildflower for rich moist, but well-drained soil in shade or semi-shade. Unusual rounded lobed foliage is attractive. Very early spring flowers are pure white and showy. Especially this rare double flowered form with abundant flowers like small water lilies which last longer than the single form as they are sterile. Zone 4-8.
Medium size deciduous tree with clusters of persistent golden 1/2 inch diameter fruits and good yellow fall color. The hardiest of the genus and good for well-drained soils either acid or limestone. (See DIR, WTX)
