MASTERCLASS
These varied plants bring so much to the garden
With Julia Boulton, Beth Chatto’s granddaughter and chief custodian of the world-famous gardens, and her team
After all the rain we’ve received so far this year, the garden is looking fresh, full and fabulous. The kaleidoscope of colour has arrived, as if Mother Nature has spilled her entire paint palette on the garden. With all this variety, the struggle isn’t finding options, it’s choosing just one to write about! Julia x
Salvias are a wide-ranging genus including classic border perennials in the form of S. nemorosa and S. x sylvestris cultivars; nemorosa and sylvestris meaning ‘of woods’, referring to the natural habitat of these salvias, typically found growing in groves and woods across central Europe and Western Asia.
Others vary in their needs, from the tall moisture-loving bog sage S. uliginosa, to the drought resistant and short-lived, silver-woolly S. argentea. The genus also includes S. rosmarinus (rosemary), S. officinalis (common sage) and its variants. Salvias are native to all continents, (excluding the Arctic & Antarctic), with more than 1,000 species and nearly 300 in Mexico alone.
Most will require full sun, with some of the shrubbier species enjoying a sheltered garden position.
For the herbaceous salvias, once flowers have faded in midsummer, the spikes can be removed to encourage a second flush of smaller flowers. In late winter/early spring, last year’s spent plant material can be cut down to the ground ready for the new growth to emerge from the crown. Irrespective of growth, form, stature or location, any salvia in flower will be a busy, buzzy melée of insect activity. Bilaterally symmetrical flowers restrict the range of pollinators to primarily bees, especially bumblebees, the size of which reflects the size of the flowers in each species.
Species of micromoths use forms of salvia as their larval food plant. In the autumn, the seedheads are attractive in their own right and contain seeds that are food for finches such as goldfinches, while the seedheads also provide shelter for beneficial predators such as ladybirds, as well as
