Here is a good website on Salvias. It will give you some names and limited information about growing needs. It says that Salvia coccinea needs full sunlight, but I have found that it will and does grow anywhere. It is highly invasive, but would be a good one to plant on your two acres for color, and they come in red, white and pink. Hummers love them.

Go to the Texas A&M website and put in a search for salvia. A lot of information will come up including:

Several salvias work in the shade garden as well. The Japanese native S. koyamae has a lax, vining habit and rewards with yellow blooms; it needs shade. S. sinaloensis has small, intensely-blue blooms and bronze-green foliage-hence its nickname 'bicolor sage.' Salvia splendens 'Van Houttei' sends up handsome magenta spikes and appreciates some shade protection from summer heat.

Salvia nipponica also works in some shade. Agree with S. coccinea...it will flower and make tons of seeds. Maybe you want this.

Joseph

I have about 8 greggii that do well in high shade. They acutally look better there than some growing in full sun.

I bought salvia greggii while blooming, and it did great in the dapple shade. I cut it back after the blooms and it lived, it just didn't flower.

It might still bloom. I have it in the sun. I never cut it at all but I'm way north of you. The past two years it really struggled because we had two very wet summers and lived up to it's other name autumn sage. This year and 2001 and 2002 it bloomed in spring and summer. Sarah