The garden varieties of Salvia nemorosa are amongst the most beautiful and obliging of all garden perennials. They flower for a good half of the year in the tough windswept plains of the Central Victorian Goldfields where I garden. They are frost hardy down to -20C and didn’t show any signs of distress when we had four days of 47C a couple of years ago. Read more about Meadow Sage
This Salvia is one of the best nemorosa types with spikes of rich violet flowers set in large lilac bracts from late Spring until Autumn. It responds well to dead heading although we cut it to the ground when it looks tired after the first 12 weeks of flowers. Read more about Salvia nemorosa ssp. tesquicola
This hybrid between Salvia nemorosa ssp tesquicola and Salvia ‘Wesuwe’ is one of our most stunning performers. It has the early flowering habit and dark flowers of the latter and the showy bracts of the former. A terrific plant which I named for my daughter. Read more about Salvia nemorosa ‘Kate Glenn’
We raised this variety several years ago and named it for the late Enid Tinney who was a good and generous friend of ours. Salvia ‘Enid’ carries 60cm tall spikes of deep amethyst violet tinted flowers for many months from mid-spring until autumn. Read more about Salvia nemorosa ‘Enid’
This fine South African Salvia makes a handsome, dense evergreen metre tall shrub well dressed in silvery green leaves. The flowers, which are produced in waves throughout spring summer and autumn, are yellow when they first open but soon turn a unique golden brown. Read more about Salvia africana-lutea
This stunning new Salvia is a seedling of S. ‘Alegria’ which is itself a hybrid between S. microphylla and S. dichlamys. ‘Alegria’s Child’ carries flame pink flowers in dark calyces on 30cm stems held well above a leafy plant some 120cm tall by as much across. Read more about Salvia ‘Alegria's Child’
We have a sea of its ethereal powder sky blue flowers in the centre aisles of the vegetable garden where it is the most commented planting in the garden at its height in autumn. S. Read more about Salvia azurea
This rarely offered Turkish endemic with its silvery grey, hairy basal leaves and mauve-blue flowers is a delight in a sunny, fairly dry spot in the garden. Read more about Salvia cyanescens
This Salvia has starred in our flower garden this year where its tall spikes of large orange red flowers are stunning in front of soft lemon sunflowers. S. darcyi was introduced into cultivation from Mexico as recently as 1990. Read more about Salvia darcyi
‘Santa Barbara’ is such a good plant, neater than other varieties, making a rounded shrubby plant, some 80cm x 90cm. It carries vertical spikes of deep mauve flowers during late summer and autumn over grey-green foliage. A drought tolerant plant for sun or light shade. Read more about Salvia leucantha ‘Santa Barbara’ PBR
Our working title for this variety of Mexican sage. It was growing in my son Harry Glenn’s garden in Camberwell and is distinguished by its bright purple red flowers held in mauve calyces. Read more about Salvia leucantha ‘Harry's Red’
This is a terrific new (to us) Salvia raised by Robin Middleton who has the excellent web page Robin’s Salvias. ‘Penny’s Smile’ is a seedling of Salvia ‘Silkes Dream’. It makes a shrub to 100cm tall by as much across. Read more about Salvia ‘Penny's Smile’
Royal Bumble is one of our most popular new releases in recent years imported from Europe. This plant has proven to be tremendously popular and with good cause. Read more about Salvia ‘Royal Bumble’
This familiar and traditionally grown Salvia carries sky blue flowers with white bee lines held on 120cm tall stems clothed with dark green leaves. Flowering from mid-summer until late autumn it sways back and forth with every breath of wind. Read more about Salvia uliginosa
This sedum is one of the ground covering types making low mounds of purple edged blue-grey succulent leaves. During summer it is studded with pale pink stars which turn to carmine as the season progresses. Read more about Sedum cauticola ‘Lidakense’
‘Pure Joy’ makes a 30cm tall by 45cm wide mound of blue-green serrated leaves which is smothered in late summer by a dome of pink stars. These flowers age to deep pink as the season progresses. Read more about Sedum ‘Pure Joy’
This new dwarf Sedum from California carries its large showy heads of deep pink flowers on a bushy 35cm tall by 40cm wide plant. This seedling of S. ‘Brilliant’ is the shortest of all the S. spectabile forms. Read more about Sedum spectabile ‘Hot Stuff’
Plants which thrive in dry shade are few and far between. Cotyledon ‘Silver Shadow’ with its intensely silver white succulent leaves lightens an otherwise gloomy corner between and under two cypresses in the dry garden. 50cm x 60cm. Read more about Cotyledon orbiculata ‘Silver Shadow’
This is one of the best groundcovers for dry shade where it will make suckering 40 cm tall evergreen stems clothed in handsome blue-green foliage. During spring the whole is covered by heads of lime green flowers. Read more about Euphorbia robbiae
Frothy masses of white flowers are held over startlingly beautiful foliage mounds. Leaves are reddish brown with a lime green edge that darkens in the colder weather. Read more about Heucherella ‘Solar Eclipse’
This evergreen small shrub has intricately dissected foliage which gives it a lacy fern like appearance. The new leaves are reddish and during winter the leaves turn rich oranges and purples. Read more about Nandina domestica ‘Filamentosa’
A fine blue flowered form of ornamental comfrey. Tough, shade loving and tolerant of dryness when once established this will make a good groundcover for difficult shaded areas. During spring it carries 35cm tall stems carrying dangling bells of blue flowers. Read more about Symphytum ‘Hidcote Blue’
This is one of the best forms of Italian Pencil Pine. It is very narrow in growth and very fast growing. Plants in our new Mediterranean garden have grown 2.5 metres tall in three years and they are already making a strong architectural statement. Read more about Cupressus sempervirens ‘Glauca’
This evergreen small shrub has intricately dissected foliage which gives it a lacy fern like appearance. The new leaves are reddish and during winter the leaves turn rich oranges and purples. Read more about Nandina domestica ‘Filamentosa’
This graceful shrub grows wild from northern California through the Pacific north west to southern parts of British Columbia. It is quite adaptable in cultivation being fairly drought tolerant although growing best with a little extra irrigation during dry periods. Read more about Philadelphus lewisii
“In autumn it bears the snowberries, of a cold glistening white, and these are certainly beautiful, both on the bush and on cut branches put in water.” Frank Kingdon-Ward
This old fashioned semi-evergreen shrub has been grown in western gardens since 1824 and in Chinese gardens for aeons before that. Small pure white double flowers are produced in clusters on cascading, arching branches during late spring and early summer. Read more about Spiraea cantoniensis ‘Flore Pleno’
A beautiful, rounded shrub up to 1.5 metres in most garden settings. The name Snowmound refers to the heavy clusters of beautiful white flowers that resemble snow laden branches in the late spring. Read more about Spiraea nipponica ‘Snowmound’
This Stokesia is named for the famed seedman Klaus Jelitto and features large steel blue cornflower-like flowers to 70-90mm over a neat mound of slender green leaves. Read more about Stokesia ‘Klaus Jelitto’
This superb form of Stoke’s Aster was selected in the Netherlands in 2015. It is more vigorous, and is more floriferous than older seed raised types. Read more about Stokesia laevis ‘Mega Mels’
“In autumn it bears the snowberries, of a cold glistening white, and these are certainly beautiful, both on the bush and on cut branches put in water.” Frank Kingdon-Ward
A fine blue flowered form of ornamental comfrey. Tough, shade loving and tolerant of dryness when once established this will make a good groundcover for difficult shaded areas. During spring it carries 35cm tall stems carrying dangling bells of blue flowers. Read more about Symphytum ‘Hidcote Blue’
