Salvia involucrata 'Bethellii'

You have some really choice and unusual Salvias B. I shall now start having a new obsession.....sigh.....;)

Well - I did tell you that Salvias were alongside Clems and Geraniums in my affections! (Weeeellllllll.......almost, anyway!)

Fortunately...or is it sadly.......they do tend to favour warm and dry...which is not easy to provide here. I can usually do the dry...but warm....well.....:)

That's a shame...there are lovely ones around. I particularly like the shrubby ones - they seem to be happy in my garden.

I saw a lady carrying off one of those deep red shrubby ones in the GC today. I hope it survives!

Hmmm...what temps do you get up there in the winter?

Normally an average minor temp in Jan/Feb of 0 to -1 only - not cold at all, because we are so close to the coast. Average days of snow lying in Jan/Feb is only 1-2. Pretty mild really in a normal year, probably much milder than Kent where you used to live!

They should be fine then - and yes, we had some mighty cold weather down there! :-((((

Yes, you see they would survive the winter, but as you know, salvias thrive in warm and dry. so although they would survive the winter, they most likely won't get the summer they need. For example, this year my variegated sage flowered....I have never ever had a sage flowering here before! That was due to the warm dry June. There are loads of plants that will survive but not thrive here!

Ah, I see.....it's not just the temperatures, is it. My sage plants still haven''t flowered - the purple ones - they just don't. :-((

Oh, I am surprised by that.

The only thing I can think is that we inherited them, and they're very old plants. Every year they look on their last legs, I cut a lot back, and they recover.

I think I'll get an ordinary green one for the herb pots around the greenhouse. My purple sage suddenly died for no apparent reason.....must have been weevils I think!

Nasty - did you find any?

Actually no I didn't find any grubs at all. I can't think what else would have just suddenly killed a salvia like that. There were about three sections on the plant and one day I noticed that one section was gone, so I cut it off and went away....as you do...then the next section withered also so at that point I took the whole thing out and binned it. Never mind though, only a sage.

I don't like plants turning up their toes, though...especially when I don't know why! :-(

No, me neither.

:-((