By Beatrice Hawkins
One of my favourite plants for hardiness and colour is the Salvia group.
I have several in my garden and find them very forgiving of soil conditions and tolerant of climate and care… or lack of it!
They do really well in dry times and then don’t mind when the rains come.
My wonderful mother-in-law used to grow brilliant red salvia Bonfire as an annual with great success at Narromine and Tottenham in western NSW and then later at Yamba on the coast so you can see they are extremely adaptable.
I have grown a gorgeous deep burgundy variety in my garden but at present my favourites are the perennial variety that just require a hard prune at the end of the season, some fertiliser and away they go again in spring.
I have just read that with annual salvias like bonfire you need to plant in a different spot each year.
The experts tell me that you should not plant these salvias back into the same ground for three years but in my limited experience I haven’t found this to be a problem.
One I have growing is Black and Bloom, a variety that was sold this year as a fundraiser for Beyondblue. It has almost black stems and electric blue flowers.
They are spectacular contrast and I am keen to see it become a bigger clump next year.
It seems to be stable at about 80cms and is flowering prolifically.
The foliage has the typical perfume of salvias when brushed against so is a nice addition to a walk way. For the same reason I have lemon balm in a pot near my mail box – I love the strong lemon essence perfume.
As a rampant member of the mint family it definitely needs containing in a pot.
Salvia is the largest member of the mint family and there are about 900 species and a variety for every area of Australia.
They vary in size from about 30cm to shrubs of about three metres and one purple flowered variety I have growing is acting as a ground cover!
Most are spring and summer flowering varieties but there are some tall growing shrubs from cool mountainous regions of Central and South America that bloom in winter.
I admit I have never seen these but they sound interesting.
Firstly, fruit scented sage has lime green foliage and bright pink flowers in the winter with the foliage adding perfume to the garden year round.
Another is a yellow flowered multi stemmed variety with long flower spikes.
They do well in both full sun and partial shade so perhaps are worth seeking out as something different if you have a spot for tall plants.
Pineapple sage is a great choice with its spires of red flowers and year round pineapple scented foliage. It is also frost tolerant but will stay a smaller bush in a cold garden. There is also a purple leaved variety that I must find as something different.
Massed plantings of Hot Lips, a lovely red and white bicolour, they looked very festive in full flower at Christmas.
There really is a variety, size and colour for any spot.
It is a true cottage garden plant as it is long flowering, easy to propagate and easy to grow. A truly versatile plant worthy of a space in any garden.
I have some young friends who were married on Australia Day some years ago and every year plant a different native plant to celebrate.
This year it will be a Eucalyptus macrandra with the common name of Long Flowered Marlock or River Yate and called ‘twet’ by the Noongar people.
It is a multi-stemmed member of the Mallee branch of the eucalyptus family with beautiful lime green to lemon yellow blossoms over a long period from early summer to autumn that are very attractive to native birds.
It is growing well in Warwick as a street tree even though it is originally from the dry, sandy, south-west of Western Australia so is obviously very tolerant of growing conditions.
It is a small to medium tree so is ideal for suburban gardens or as a street tree and has grey smooth bark that is shed in autumn.
A friend has one doing well on the nature strip and I recently picked some blossom and found they are a really good and long lasting cut flower.
It is definitely one I will plant in a corner of my garden when I find it!
*This is an old article that has been digitised so our readers have access to our full catalogue.
