Day 207: Salvia uliginosa

Daily details from the garden to bring you inspiration throughout the year

GWW-gardeninspo-day207.jpg

Hardy salvias ask very little from the gardener. Lots of sun, a very little water. That’s a about it, and yet, they bring colour and volume to the summer garden with great generosity of spirit. The choice is huge – even more so now that rosemary has been reclassified by the boffins as Salvia rosmarinus (yes, rosemary is now, confusingly, a sage!) – as is the range of height, from the shin-high ‘So Cool Blue’ to the towering S. involucrata (of which cultivated varieties are often shorter – the species can reach 2m in the UK and twice that in its native Mexico). This week, I’ve been enjoying the colourful haze created by the bog sage Salvia uliginosa, its flowers a forget-me-not blue, held on slender, branching stems to 1.75m tall. A joy to watch the bees taking their fill as the plants bend and wave in the wind, and all the more so as this is one of the few plants that provide that particular hue at or near eye level.


Click here to sign up for daily #gardeninspo365 posts and blog updates direct to your inbox.


Sign up for the monthly newsletter below


Hello! I’m Andrew, gardener, writer, photographer, and owner of a too-loud laugh, and I’m so pleased you’ve found your way to Gardens, weeds & words. You can read a more in-depth profile of me on the About page, or by clicking this image.

Follow