After our year of extreme drought, and the crazy spring weather with single digit lows in late April, many of you have come to the nursery with sad stories about your garden. Plants that had lived in your yard for seven or eight years (or longer) chose last year to depart. And over and over again you have said to us, “I’m just going to grow the things that can survive.” This has not been a year where many feel like being reckless and experimenting. And when you’ve asked us for the plants that survive, you have mentioned salvia as a model plant. “More salvia!” has been a constant request. Or, “Do you have anything that is as tough as Salvia?”
When people mention the salvias that are doing well in their garden, they’re often talking about Salvia nemorosa cultivars. Plants like May Night, Caradonna, East Friesland, Marcus, Blue Hill–those are all variations on the Salvia nemorosa species. Meadow Sage is a common name for this group. Now might be the time to mention that Salvia is the scientific name and Sage the common name. I know that can be confusing. Adding to the confusion is the fact that sage or sagebrush is also used as a common name for plants in the genus Artemisia–native plants like Artemisia frigida are called Fringed Sage. Here are a couple of pictures of the Meadow Sage on our slope garden:
In that second picture are also plants of Salvia dumetorum, a cousin to the Meadow Sage and equally tough. It seeds around a bit, and I think it’s crossed with Salvia nemorosa, producing some variation in this clump on the slope. Both Salvia nemorosa and Salvia dumetorum can survive in a precipitation-only garden. I know this because Salvia nemorosa has lived through extreme drought in an abandoned garden here and still blooms every year. They don’t get quite as tall as they would with a little irrigation water, but for those of you looking for tough and drought tolerant–and deer resistant–look no further. Salvia dumetorum has survived for Bob Nold in his unwatered front yard in Lakewood for decades.
Another plant that has done really well for people is the 2005 Plant Select winner, Salvia pachyphylla. Here’s a picture from the Plant Select website:
Salvia pachyphylla is an amazingly tough plant that survives from the plains to the mountains. We have customers in Westcliffe who have had good luck with this plant, as well as in Cuchara and Beulah and Peublo. It survived the bad freezing temperatures this past April without any damage for people at all of those elevations and that makes it a keeper.
We have some other salvias this year, salvias that come from the driest regions of the mediterranean: Salvia hypargeia and Salvia phlomoides. We got the seeds of these from Mike Kintgen at the Denver Botanic Gardens and expect to be growing them for many years to come: silvery leaves with blue or purple flowers–lovely. Salvia is a genus to give us hope for our gardens here in the arid West.
(Spelling correction: It’s not nemerosa, but nemorosa–like Finding Nemo. Thanks, Bob. I hate to make spelling mistakes; you’d think I’d proofread more carefully. This reminds me of the time I spelled Artemisia with an “e:–Artemesia. It was many years ago, in our catalog. Panayoti gently pointed out my mistake and I said, “Are you sure? I’ve seen it that way many times.” He said, “Yes, I’m sure. It was my mother’s name.” I still wince at my arrogance back then. I didn’t really know I was trying to correct one of the world famous plantsmen. I think he’s forgiven me.)
