This is a difficult question. I have more than 100 species in a garden which is too small. However, I can recommend certain species which blend well.

For example, try a combination of S. 'Indigo Spires', S. darcyi, and S. uliginosa, for a brilliant display in late Summer.

Smaller plants....try S. tubiflora (which was previously known as S. oppositiflora) with S. patens 'Cambridge Blue'.

For large Summer-flowering species....S. involucrata, S. concolor, and S. gilliesei are a good blend, if a bit rampant!

For early-flowering European and Asian species, a raised bed, or a very well-drained area, you might consider a combination of S. pisidica, S. albimaculata, and maybe a yellow form of S. gregii for contrast.

If you have a large border with tall red and blue Salvias,
a great addition which will both enhance and blend well is Gaura lindheimeri, pure white flowers, an easy drought-tolerant plant.

Hope this helps...will probably get lots of mails contradicting my ideas.....but such a good topic!

Best wishes from a freezing UK.....Robin.

I have a large garden that is divided off into sections. I try to use a large number of one kind & color of Salvia as a focal point in a single area with other Salvias and flowers worked in. Having a single kind enmasse seems to give some definition to the rest of the mix.

And, using Robin's ideas of mixing certain species that look good together will be great.

If you have a smaller garden you might try mixing our two ideas. Lets say you have a square divided by the walk into 4 areas. Use the same combinations that look good together in all four squares, or.... on both sides.... or what ever design works for you. The thing is to do the same thing in the area that the eye sees.

In designing a collector's garden, I can think of several concepts that could be useful, depending on available space:

1. Consider microclimates, even within beds. The east side of a house gets early sun and late shade, so beds there warm up faster and have a steadier temperature than the west side, which stays cool then rockets up in the afternoon, like a desert. Think of your house as a miniature mountain. Raised sandy loam beds are good for desert and alpine sages, humusy loams for most New World sages. Beware of depressions, which make cold pockets. In other words, place your plants where they will best thrive.

2. Companion plants. Add modest amounts of other types of plants like bulbs (Alliums and Zephyranthes for instance), small roses, mat formers like thymes and Delospermas, mound formers like Santolinas. These add texture and need not interfere much with the total number of sages in your beds. You can pick them to fill in color when the sages are not in bloom.

3. Use design elements from the countries that the sages come from. A rock garden and a meadow for Eurasian sages, Japanese and Chinese themes for East Asian sages, terraces for Mexican sages, etc.

How much of these elements you can incorporate depends on both available space, time, and money, but even modest adaptations will add interest.

Wow, great ideas! I like your combinations, Robin.
And it's a great idea to have a lot of one type of Salvia to focus an area, Westelle. Also like repeating plants in the areas you can see. I guess my problem is that I have several collections and I am starting by growing one or 2 plants of each - to see if I like them. That adds up to a lot of "specimen" plants.

One of the problems is that my beds in the back are mainly long perennial beds with no bones to speak of. The front yard looks better cause I had a plan for the bones & just added perennials where they'd fit. Actually that is the area of more steady temperatures. What a great explanation of micro climates, Rich. That is totally my problem. The back of the house faces south to southwest. Plants that look fine in the blazing sun one day will shrivel up & die the next. I need to be careful to shade them for a bit of time when they're new. I have most of my beds in full sun at the rear of my house & a long side border which gets afternoon shade from my neighbors at the top of the picture's pines. I am in the low area & I have a slope going up to my neighbors in the rear. Actually there are a couple of swales running across my yard dividing the slope. Those areas can be like a river during a storm and then dry out pretty well the rest of the time. The slope is facing the house thus northeast but is not very steep & with no trees to shade it, it is in full sun for most of the day. That's in the summer. In the winter there seems to be quite a bit more shade as the other neighbors also have pines.
This picture is from Microsoft TerraServer - taken several years ago, before any of the beds in the rear were created.
The top of the picture is north. It is set with each side being exactly North/South/East/West. The large thing in the rear is a swing set with maples shading it. One day that may be a screened pagoda(in my dreams).

Currently there are beds along the houses rear & sides & one long bed by my neighbor's pines to the North (on the picture). The arrow shows the hill & the curved line shows the major swale. I had an idea to do a rock bed at the bottom of the swale where the yard is level. The area on the curve after the arrow. The yard is 2/3 of an acre & I already need help maintaining the beds that are there, so I've been concentrating on doing the beds I can see from inside the house. As I acquire more of my faves, there is the need to create more beds. I have a large Lespedeza thunbergi "Gibraltar out on the hill facing my deck. Ideally I would terrace the hill a bit. Instead, I have slowly planted into the hill. It is quite overwhelming. You can't see the trees we have put in, mainly on the borders to block the neighbors. I also like the idea of some water feature trickling down the hill, but it would require quite a lot of work to make it look like it was there when we arrived. The land was somewhat barren with no trees when we moved in because it was cornfields. I've been reluctant to have any trees near the house cause I love the way the light streams into the windows all day long & I love planting sun plants. It does get rather hot out there midday & the mosquitoes are like you've never seen(or maybe you have). It doesn't help that the swale water empties into a stream a few backyards away. In high mosquito season, it is so hot & buggy, I view the garden from indoors.
Well enough of my dilemma, I need to figure out exactly how much time & money I want to spend on this backyard. I just don't want to do so much that it will take a team of people to maintain it.
Just call me Muddling in Maryland.

Rose

Well, one of your solutions will be to get some of that superfertile mushroom soil. I lived in Baltimore in the mid 70s in an apartment on one half of a duplex. I was allowed to put in a few postage stamp gardens. The local soil was a yellow clay with lots of broken rock in it, so I found some of this soil at a local nursery and built some raised beds.

The harvest of beans, squash, lettuce, and tomatoes is still the best I ever had from a garden. One tomato plant, trained on a rose trellis, produced 75 fruit. I regularly brought in 4 quart bags of wax beans from my ten plants to work about every 10 days. The basil I grew was the richest scented I have ever grown.

Most of this soil comes from the mushroom farms in old coal mines around Philadelphia. It is a blend of sandy loam, horse manure, and ground up corncobs that has spent its usefulness growing mushrooms.

Rich,

Where did you get the mushroom soil? You didn't haul it from Philadelphia , did you?
My yard looks so bare, I must post a link to my Salvias, Agastaches & Penstemons, so you see that I do indeed have beds back there!
What is the plural for those three? I feel that maybe the s isn't necessary but I'm not sure!

Thanks.

Rose

Here is a link that might be useful: Salvia/Agastache/Penstemon set

Rosewomann,This is my first time in this site,And I must say,After clicking on the photos you posted,I am very impressed.I can;t imagine why you feel like you have a collectors garden and are a little unhappy with the look.I personally wouldn't change a thing.It looks like you have perfected a beautiful garden.But if you wanted to mix it up or spice it up a little,Would you consider using some annuals?Maybe Marigolds?They are one of my favorites.
They have a very long bloom time and come in different sizes and colors.Of course there is the deadheading factor,
To me they are worth the trouble.Of course I really have no idea where MD Montg.is.Or if you can grow them where you live."I can't imagine them not growing anywhere though.>LOL.Just a thought.

Geeze Rosewoman,What'd I do???Run everybody off with my suggestion?? I wanted to look in on the responses to your post and there isn't any.I thought your flowers were beautiful and couldn't imagine you being somewhat unhappy with the look.Did you ever decide what you were going to do or change?I'd be very interested to know.

Todays Memories Are Tomorrows Treasures
May You Have Many Yesterdays!!!

Wow, Rosewoman, very impressive garden!
As Rich said, microclimates are a great answer. Mixing in non Salvias/Agastaches/Penstemons that take the same conditions break up the 'look' of just having one, or in your case, three species.
Another way to break it up to plant shrubs that would act as focal points in the garden. In my first garden I had cleared it of the dead, dying and unwanted shrubs then planted new 'bones'. I also added paths. Then I fell in love with Salvias and planted them wherever they would fit. When I visited the holder of the Natl Salvia Collection here in Victoria I saw she had pretty much the same but on a much grander scale as she has several acres whereas I had a teeny garden of 20ft x 35ft. In no way did her garden look like a collection of any one thing... well, maybe to us Salvia fanatics because I don't recall looking at anything else!
Of course, living where I do means I can have a greater variety of Salvias than you that I can plant and grow in my garden. I've yet to have a Salvia that I need to overwinter - though I do take cuttings of the more tender species just in case the frost comes. But even then I've only had things nipped and not killed. I remember the cold of Maryland - had a friend in Silver Springs I used to visit often.
But I'm a mish-mash gardener, anyway. I just put things together however and wherever and somehow Mother Nature takes over and makes it all work. Except for the rust colored Kangaroo Paw next to S microphylla 'Huntington Red'. That looked awful! LOL
Cait

granny57,
it's not that I'm unhappy about the look so far, it's just that if I grow all of my collectibles, I'm afraid it will be a mess of specimen plants! I'm talking hundreds---in my dreams ;-)

Cait,
"Of course, living where I do means I can have a greater variety of Salvias than you that I can plant and grow in my garden."

Oh no!!! I didn't just read that, I already have California lust, I can't be jealous of the Australians too! Better I think that the rest of the world has hot, muggy summers & cold, wet winters, then I will be able to continue living here. We've got a long while before we can move anywhere more suitable to my plant loves, so I've got to stay happy. Smile pasted on face, I'm OK now...
I just read your page, you're a transplanted New Yorker? I'm from New Jersey, but been in Maryland since college(almost 30 years now). You should read the book "Almost French" about an Australian that moves to France because of a relationship with a Frenchman whom she later marries. It's a very interesting account of adapting to a new country & culture. You might like it. The writer is very likeable & her story can be quite humorous.
I'd love to see your garden. I remember once reading a huge list of Salvias that you were growing. I don't think I'd like the rust kangaroo paws with the red Salvia either!

Thanks to both of you for the compliments on my garden, it's a work in progress. I'm hoping to grow some Salvias on the hillside. More Salvias :-)

Rose

Hi Rose!
Soooo, you're a Joisy goil! LOL Man oh man! I had some great times in Hoboken. That was a happenin' little town. I'm from Queens tho at times my accent is decidedly Brooklyn. Have a brother now living in Plainview.

So yes, I'm a transplanted person. But no need to have that gardening lust cuz (in my humble opinion) you're living in the BEST country in the world!! And you're now enjoying longer days and Spring while we're going into winter.
Admittedly, I have been terribly spoiled by the climate here. I grow a few African Salvia species, my favorite being S namaensis. The fragrance of its leaves is captivating and I just have to crush them every time I go passed this plant. I keep trying to figure out where in the States I might find a similar climate and keep thinking Oregon/Wash state area. Perhaps if I move back to the States one day that's where I'll go. Have a cousin there already so I wouldn't have to feel completely lost.

I think you need to construct the perfect greenhouse on all that land of yours. I have mags from the UK and you should see some of the fantastic greenhouses in that country. Though I do know some guy here who constructed a series of 'houses' (just lumber poles with a really thick opaque plastic membrane things attached around and also above as the canopy) and he has them heated, too. He's grown pineapples in them and we're really too cold down here in Victoria to grow those. Or maybe you can build a magnificent conservatory onto your house. Oooooo... I like that one - would love to do that myself. There are definitely ways around it and with just a bit of imagination you too can be growing every Salvia you can get your hands on!!
I'd love to see more pics of your garden. I can never see enough pics. You can always email me. Then we can 'tawk'.
Cait