Tag: salvia

Salvia Van Houttei

Stephen Carlin

Salvia ‘Van Houttei’ is a lovely plant with distinctive burgundy flowers that start on the new growth in Spring, then carry on through the warm months and right through Winter if conditions allow. Flower spikes are generous and held above the foliage. It is a cultivar of Salvia splendens, and Betsy Clebsch lists it within that species, although it bears less resemblance to the modern splendens bedding cultivars. BC also reports that it was named after Belgian nurseryman Louis Benoit Van Houtte, which helps me remember the spelling. Description In…

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Salvia involucrata, a big showy subtropical sage

Stephen Carlin

For sheer size and winter colour, Salvia involucrata varieties are outstanding in our subtropical garden. This is the original salvia in our collection. When we first moved into Hill House there was a well established patch growing at one of the entrance gates. It’s well away from the current house but nicely placed on the driveway to announce the house paddock with big pink flowers from autumn to spring.

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Salvias, a new garden theme

Stephen Carlin

For the past couple of months I have been establishing a Salvia (sage) garden. They seem to be an ideal plant for our conditions, and I’m hoping they will have the potential to fill the bank under the house with colour and interest. Usually with Salvias you think of the eye-catching red and blue bedding types, which are always available in punnets for seasonal colour, but the variety of forms and colours goes way beyond those two, and collections of more than a hundred types seem to be standard with…

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