Salvia ‘amistad’ was the first of my new salvias to make an eye-catching show in the garden. Very soon after planting, it put on good new growth through August (late Winter), and followed with spikes of beautiful flowers.
My first lot of twelve salvias came as tube stock in the post in early August (late Winter) from Unlimited Perennials. It was perfect weather for transporting and planting them, cool and misty, and they all got off to good starts in the ground. Salvia ‘amistad’ was the first to make a showy display with its spikes of purple flowers.
My hope with the salvias is that they will be a good cover for the steep bank below our house, so they need to grow quickly in our soil and climate to form good-sized bushes that will out-compete the grass and other weeds that quickly colonise new ground here. I planted them all with no soil conditioning (no compost, fertiliser or liming) to get a true indication of how well they do in the soil. They did need some watering through this year’s very dry October, but have been pretty hardy so far.
‘Amistad’ looks like it might be a contender for some serious propagation and planting out, although plenty of others are growing well so far, and it might just be that this is the most spectacular of the Spring flowers to date.
A great thing with salvias is that there is a big range of shape, flower colour and foliage type, so I’m hoping to mix them up in complementary groupings.
‘Amistad’ enjoyed our hot and dry October, and now that the rain has returned it seems to be concentrating on foliage growth again. It will be interesting to see what its flowering calendar is once it is properly established.