Salvias (Flowering Sage)
It is surprising how seldom one sees the Salvia grown to any considerable extent outside the public gardens and parks, though no other flower can compare with it in richness of colour and freedom of bloom, but there seems to be an impression that it must be purchased from a florist or grown from cuttings. Salvia is much more desirable for bedding than for any other purpose. In the house it is subject to attacks of red spider, which make it more trouble to care for than it is worth, while in the open ground it is remarkably healthy and free from insect pests.
Seed should be started early in flats or hotbed, and plants set out where they are to remain, when all danger of frost is past, as they are very sensitive to cold. Muck or marsh earth seems the most congenial soil in which to grow the Salvias, and if this is supplied they will need little care beyond watering during the summer.
I have grown the Salvia splendens—the usual height of which is about two and a half feet—to a uniform height of five feet in a bed of marsh earth, with a supply of water from a pipe, keeping it constantly moist. They will do well in the hottest situation if well supplied with water, and even better in partial shade—the foliage being a deeper green and the colour of the blossoms richer and more velvety than when exposed to full sunlight. For years I have grown them around a twelve-foot bed of Ricinus and Cannas, and notice that the plants are always much finer on the north side.
Try them as a border to a bed of Cannas or Ricinus, edging them with white Sweet Alyssum or dwarf Ageratum. They root readily in wet sand in a warm situation, and if a house-plant is available it may be used for cuttings instead of sowing seed.
Seed may be saved without injury to the plants as it ripens, and must be gathered before the flowers entirely fade. The corolla or lip of the flower falls out, leaving four white seeds an eighth of an inch long at the base of the calyx, which remains fresh until the seeds have ripened, when they may be shaken out. By going over the plants daily one soon saves a fine lot of seed, which may be depended upon to germinate. The Salvia seed germinates in about five days. But less vigorous seed will continue to appear for two or three weeks after sowing, and the soil should not be disturbed until all have had time to appear. They require considerable heat to germinate freely, and when this is supplied will give very satisfactory returns. Bonfire, Clara Bedman, and S. splendens are the best of the scarlet-flowered variety. The white-flowered Salvias would be desirable if the blossoms were more closely massed on the spray; as it is they are too scattered to have any value. S. patens, however, when brought to perfection is magnificent, the individual flowers being double the size of the scarlet and of the most wonderful shade of blue. It is seldom seen, but should have a place in every garden, as it is a colour rare among flowers, the nearest approach to it being the Monkshood. It is a tender perennial, but may be wintered in a warm, dry cellar, dying down to the ground usually, but starting up from the root in the spring.
Sweet Alyssum and Golden Saxatile are both desirable for edging or for rockwork, and may either be sown in the open ground where they are to remain, or in a seed-bed and transplanted.