Thread by @UrsulaV

*slams down drink* WHO WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT THE PLANT GENUS SALVIA

https://twitter.com/SketchesbyBoze/status/1404906545901604874

Okay, to my mild surprise, plenty of y’all do want to hear about Salvias, aka THE BEST PLANT GENUS aka my personal horticultural obsession.

Salvia (no, no saliva) is a branch of the mighty Menthae clan, thus putting it on a footing with mints, catmints, Agastache, bee balm, etc. It is one of the very largest genuses, with over 900 species.

This concludes the technical portion of the discussion. Suffice it to say, you can find a Salvia for nearly every purpose under the sun.

The three types you’ll usually see in garden shops are A) tough, hardy, brightly colored species like S. greggi and S. microphylla. They hail from the deserts of North and Central America and they like a Mediterranean climate if they can get it.

B) S. nemerosa and relatives, which has much larger leaves, usually small purple or pink flowers on spikes, hail from Eurasia, and like a little more water and cooler temps than an S. greggi, but are still quite tough.

And C) culinary sages, like S. officianalis, which is actually a small woody shrub given the opportunity, and which again wants sun and sharp drainage and a Mediterranean climate.

You may also find Pineapple Sage, which is popular in the herb section, S. elegans, and the leaves are quite soft and do indeed smell very strongly of pineapple. It has lovely red flowers and hails from high altitudes in Mesoamerica.

Plus some annual sages, which are annuals and fine for what they are. But once you get past these very basic types, there is a whole massive specialized world of plants that most gardeners rarely encounter. And they are AMAZING.

You want a groundcover for damp shade? S. nipponica from Japan. It’s bright yellow. Okay, drier shade? S. japonica, it’s purple. Okay, dry shade under oak trees? S. arizonica.

You feel like something huge and impressive? S. mexicana will get 6’ by 6’ and bloom like anything. So will like five other Mexican sages. You want something a smidge less gigantic? S. guaranitica will probably stick to 3’ by 3’ and you can prune the Devil out of it.

You want a prostrate spreading groundcover form that looks vaguely like baby’s tears? S. chionophylla, from Chihuahua. You want a flower extravaganza? S. madrensis flower spikes can be three feet long.

Now, the vast majority will like good drainage and full sun. Them’s the breaks. There are some truly marvelous sages that rot the instant they touch my humidity. But you can absolutely find part shade and dappled shade forms if you want, and they come in literally every color.

Yes, including black. That’s Andean silver sage and I broke down and brought some and it’s not even remotely hardy here but I hope to overwinter it in a pot indoors.

Salvias produce scads of nectar and are beloved of many pollinators, but being a mint, they do not act as a host plant for anything much EXCEPT the Southern Pink Moth which loves all Salvia flower buds and can be a major pest.

The late Richard Dufrense was one of the great Salvia growers in North Carolina and his friends say that he was a genius, deeply passionate about salvias, and also had “a uniquely wired brain that left him only marginally functional in society.”

He was also apparently once arrested on suspicion of being a drug dealer for having a license plate that read SALVIA. Upon his passing, most of his collection wound up at Big Bloomers nursery in Sanford, who did their best, but labeling is not everyone’s strong suit.

This is how I have a salvia in the yard labeled “S. grewfolia” which is turns out isn’t a real plant, so I dunno what the hell I’m growing.

All right, now everybody always wants to know about S. divinorum. I gotta water the tomatoes but then I’ll give you the quick rundown on this plant.

Tomatoes are watered. Whew. Thirsty buggers.

Ok. Salvia divinorum, aka Diviner’s Sage, aka The One That Gets You High.

Weird damn plant.

For one thing, as far as we can tell, it’s not actually a real species. It appears to be a naturally occurring sterile hybrid of two other salvias. Which ones? Your guess is as good as anybody’s. Don’t go thinking we know all the plant species on earth because HA, no.

It is a mule. It flowers rarely and does not seem to set viable seed. Anybody trying to sell you Genuine Salvia Divinorum Seed No Really wants your money.

In the wild, it propagates vegetatively, which means it is pretty damn rare, and also it lives way the hell up mountains in Oaxaca.

This does happen. Naturally occurring hybrids aren’t particularly uncommon. This one just happens to make you see God.

(I ask you, HOW MANY PLANTS did people try to smoke before they landed on this random cloud forest rarity?)

I have not tried it. My days of knocking on the doors of perception is long past, Terrence McKenna has diminished and gone into the West, and I am old and have deadlines.

Nor do I wish to grow it, because there are LITERALLY hundreds of spectacular Salvias, many from the various high altitude cloud forests, and why would I waste time on one that isn’t hardy and doesn’t flower more than once in a blue moon?

Should you wish to sample the delights of the Salvia species, the best mail order Salvia nursery in North America is Flowers By The Sea. They have a gigantic catalog and will often answer questions of ID and “why did my plant die?” and so forth.

That is fbts.com and it is a dangerous place if you have a credit card.

Plants have always arrived large and healthy, and if they died, it was the fact that I was trying to grow a desert sage in a humid swamp.

(Being me, I will routinely order plants that may or may not survive because you never know until you try. If one in four holds on, I count it a win, because I am definitely growing in hostile conditions.)

A few things of note, while I have you here:

Salvias are a cosmopolitan genus and exist natively on every continent except maybe Australia and definitely Antarctica. Native plant fan that I am, probably there’s a native near you.

In the Southeast, S. lyrata is a common weed species that grows in both my yard and on Dogskull. We are perfectly happy to have it, but it’s the spreadiest sage I know.

Most species are not edible. I don’t think any will kill you.

For growing in a pot in an area that is wetter than Mediterranean, the cloud forest varieties usually do fine with regular potting soil, but the desert ones will need some amending. I have good luck with half potting soil, half chicken grit.

Most will root happily from cuttings. The only ones that have really given me trouble there are some rarities from China.

If your salvia greggi or similar is excessively woody, cut back a third to half the stems to the base and see if they regenerate fresh growth.

This concludes Why Salvias Are The Best with Ursula.

Also this!

https://twitter.com/fg2hummingbirds/status/1405292409676656649

OH! I am reminded! Many of you are already familiar with a salvia plant! S. chiapensis, better know as…

Scratch that, my brain muddled the names. S. hispanica, not S. chiapensis. Chia is an annual, S. chiapensis is another of the nifty cloud forest salvias that happens to have chia in the name.

Also I think there’s another one called golden chia? It’s all Salvias, though.