Salvia a perennial delight

The National Garden Bureau has proclaimed 2019 as The Year of the Salvia. I would be the first to proclaim a hearty AMEN! Then I started thinking that for The Garden Guy every year is the year of the salvia. Then I went into despair thinking what if I had a year without salvia? It would be like the old "Hee Haw" TV show song, "Gloom Despair and Agony on Me, Deep Dark Depression Excessive Misery."

That's it, in a nutshell, I simply could not live without perennial salvias. They create instant excitement in the garden because of their spiky texture adding a vertical element no other plant can match. The Garden Guy craves blue in all shades, so salvia like Indigo Spires, Mystic Spires Blue, and last year's Mysty Blue salvia will all be in my garden. I am looking forward to this year's hit Big Blue.

Though I have no bog you can expect to find the bog sage salvia uliginosa in my garden reaching 4-feet tall, spreading and offering sky blue flowers that are among the rarest colors in the garden. Salvias are the hummingbird magnets in the garden and while they frequently visit the salvias mentioned above nothing quite compares to the anise sage or salvia guaranitica varieties and hybrids.

Black & Blue, Black & Bloom, and Amistad salvia are where hummingbirds come to feast in ecstasy and seem to stay until cold weather moves them to the tropics. These are large salvias, 4- to 5-feet tall with a clump almost as wide. The flower's black calyces partnered with cobalt blue blooms or royal purple as in the Amistad are mesmerizing.

After almost 40 years of growing salvias, it is most rare to watch them for even a couple of minutes without seeing a variety of pollinators. Bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and those rarities like the scarlet-bodied wasp moth can be found visiting. You'll be surprised what you find each and...