If Salvia patens were durable in North Carolina, it would be my favorite because it has the largest true blue flowers. Its cousin S. cacalifolia is reliable. Salvias sagittata, macrophylla, and a hybrid between the two can be rather striking. They are mot as reliable, though. Salvia reptans from west Texas and S. chamaedryoides from Yucca-Do are also true blue and hardy, but the flowers are small.

Cobalt blue flowers are also nice. The S. guaraniticas produce them in great abundance. These are the best hummer plants. Salvia farinacea produces smaller flowers, but some forms are strong bloomers, like Indigo Spires and Mystic Spires. Salvia azurea grandiflora is a very tough powder blue. Salvia uliginosa can almost become a weed, and is hardy to zone 6.

Thanks. Of those you listed Mystic Spires was my favorite. I like nice neat little clumps. Sadly tho it is only hardy to z7. I am pushing 6b
Tammy

I agree about S patens, but it won't overwinter outside for you (probably); it's winter dormant though and does well in pots, so it's a possibility.

The hardy European salvias have smaller flowers but are dainty and to my mind as pretty as the bigger, brasher ones from mid & S America etc; there are some nice colour selections of S pratensis available now and the ordinary ones range from mid to rich, dark blue; fields full of them in France and Switzerland are knockout. S transsylvanica is similar but usually no darker than mid blue. There is an elusive form of one or the other of these which is sometimes sold as S nemorosa var tesquicola which doesn't meet your small-neat-clumps criterion as it is quite a lot taller, but it has larger, really dark blue flowers. S concolor might be hardy with you too but you probably won't like that as it is very tall, with indigo flowers right at the top!

Well, they're all gorgeous - I even like the weedy ones!!

I am in Zone 8b so I am sure these are not hardy to Zone 6. But I do love Salvia mexicana and S. chiquita. Bith are blooming their heads off right now. The chiguita's flowers are almost 24" long. The yellow sulfurs have a preference for them. the combination lights up my days.

Mystic Spires and Indigo Spires have never stopped blooming all summer. They are still as gorgeous as the day they were planted. I hope they will overwinter for me as they are now my favorites. The Mystic Spires is a nice, compact size and I like the height on Indigo Spires as it fits the scale for the middle of the border in my outer gardens.

The 'Black & Blue' has been fabulous and a hummingbird favorite. I like the wider leaves on it - something that is difficult to find for deer resistant gardens as most of those plants are narrow-leaved.

Uliginosa has it's place in the right space. I use it with amsonia hubrichtii, helianthus angustifolis 'First Light' and Japanese irises.

Cameron

tammyinwv
Salvia chamaedryoides the contrast of the gray foliage/blue
flower, S.caudata "El Cielo Blue" small flowers great foliage.S. mexicana "Tula"here again contrast of chartreuse
calyx and blue flowers held on deep green foliage.
Art

Thanks everyone. Seems the like the ones I really like are out of my zone :(
Tammy

tammyinwv:

You can grow the Salvia nemerosas (I like East Friesland), and forms of S. pratensis (meadow sage)

Zone 6 makes trying the tougher guaraniticas like Argentina Skies and Black& Blue worth a shot.

East Frieland is very nice, but i read it was sterile, and for now I am looking for seed. As is pratensis. When I looked at daves for pratensis, the fist photo showed one almost a cobalt blue the other leaned more into purples. IS there a variety that is deep dark blue?

Pratensis does have a dark blue form, similar to guaranitica in color and size. I have gotten seed of it in the 70s.

Salvia pratensis 'Indigo' is a great form, and flowers from June till October, if dead-headed. Large, deep blue flowers.

Tammyinwv, I just posted my salvia for ID on this forum so I don't know the name but I'm in zone 6-5ish and it does well in my garden. I also have May Night which blooms heavily but the unidentified one blooms even more. Here is a picture of it:

{{gwi:276993}}

I will let you know if I learn the name.

Hera is a picture of my May Night Salvia taken at the same time during summer so that you can compare. It is a bit more sprawled than my other one and bloomed twice after being deadheaded where the other one just bloomed non-stop.

{{gwi:276995}}
The May Night is at the bottom right corner.

I like my S. patens, though it doesn't seem to be popular with the hummingbirds. I recently saw a large clump of Indigo Spires in flower at a botanical garden: marvelous. I have yet to try the S. guaraniticas... I know that B&B is the usual favorite, but what about Argentina, Sapphire Blue, or Omaha Gold? If I could only pick one, which should it be? :)

Melaroma, I do like your unidentified one on the left better as well. And I have heard so much praise about May Night.
Check out this pretty one I found while searching for pics of the names you guys gave me:
{{gwi:1248318}}
Tammy

Here is a link that might be useful: Yugoslavian cutleaf sage

Wow that sure is beautiful! I wonder if it is hardy to z6...

That link states:
Yugoslavian cutleaf sage 'Blue'
NAME: Salvia jurisicii
ZONES: 5 to 9
HEIGHT: 18 inches
I would love to get some of this. I like nice neat growing plants.
Tammy

This year, my favourite blue Salvia has been Salvia vitifolia, related to Salvia patens, but more robust.

Salvia jurisicii is often grown in rock gardens, so look in rock garden seed catalogs like Alplains.

I am just now trying to establish S. juriscii. It made it through our heat wave in a little pot. The one I planted in the garden fried to a crisp. Couln't take the 69 days of 100 and me forgetting about its existence. oops. I have a few cuttings off the one remaining plant . maybe it will take this late in the season. I have my fingers crossed.

My current favorite is S. sagittata. Wow, what a shade of blue; more spectacular than any photo I saw online. It has just started to bloom in my garden.

The true blue sages include S. patens and its relatives, S.cacalifolia, and S. sagittata, S. macrophylla, and their relatives.

S. sagittata x macrophylla `Big Swing' (named after Betsy Clebsch's home) is a very promising true blue sage

Im afraid all of fav blues are not hardy in my zone 6 but thought I would post them as they are eyecatching and the hummers love them.

salvia guaranitica blue ensign

salvia sagittata
{{gwi:1248319}}

My favorite blue has to be, this month, Salvia chiquita. The picture is of my plant past its prime but the masses of butter flies don't seem to care. They LOVE this plant. The yellow sulfurs look killer on it too. The monarchs have been by to check it out for the last week. The show keep going on.

What a great picture!! I was focused on butterflies, until I got my first hummingbirds, went mad planting for them, got hooked on Salvias, and now I"m running out of room in my garden. Anything that doesn't attract wildlife might have to get pulled out to make space. :)

The Monarchs will be congregating in the local eucalyptus trees soon...

You must have S regla for your Hummers if you don't have it yet. The Hummers are migrating through and totally focused on my Regla. I got my hair parted by a out of control little bugger doing a great rendition of a Japanese Bonzai pilot this morning. There were 5 fighting over that plant all morning long.

I love watching the hummingbird antics, I have a couple of feeders hanging on my porch. I was just looking up the regla but another poster said it only bloomed once a yr.

Hummersteve, I LOVE the color of your salvia guaranitica blue ensign . I think thats worth planting every yr. I gotta find seeds for that one too,lol.
Here I my fav hummer pic:
{{gwi:427978}}

tammyinwv

Thanks for your comments. It may be rather difficult to find seed for the blue ensign. I got my plants from Richard de Fresne at "World of Salvias"

Here is a link that might be useful: world of salvias

Tammy, My salvia regla blooms spring and fall. It is a smaller flush in the spring and the fall flush has been going on for ever this year. Atleast since mid september. It doesn't look even near its end yet.

I have to agree with voodoobrew. Salvia sagittata is blooming in my greenhouse right now and it's just gorgeous! It was my favorite even before it bloomed, though~I love the shape and color of the leaves.

Jaynine, that is a beautiful blue.Does it grow fairly compact? I am going to add that seed to my "want" list.
Tammy

My favorite is Victoria. Fleuroselect Award Winner!
Large, violet-blue spikes on compact plants that spread to 14" inches across. The best for color intensity and duration of bloom.

tammy,
Salvia sagittata grows 3-5 feet, so not compact at all. Wish I had some seeds to send you, but the few I received in trade were all sown and I'm not expecting my plant to set any~sorry.

Thanks for thinking of me jaynine. I did find a pretty good pic of the whole plant. I didnt realize it was that tall. Kinda airy looking.
Tammy

Salvia sagittata can be finicky to grow. The hybrid with S. macrophylla, Big Swing (named after Betsy Clebsch's home on Skyline drive), is a giant. It is very showy, with lots of blue flowers, and is much more resilient.

I expect my S. sagittata to set seed... my hummingbirds are all over it right now. It is rather large. The leaves are very interesting, too.

Maybe someone can ID a blue salvia that I saw today (I didn't have my camera)... It was very low growing, and a rampant spreader. Effectively, it was a full ground cover, only a few inches tall. The flowers looked like S. sinaloensis, but the leaves were shorter, nearly round, and bright green. Any ideas? thanks.

Voodoobrew:
Maybe S.villosa ,repens(Which has a different flower from
sinaloensis) prunelloides (leaves are not round). Thymoides
has a grayish foliage and leaves like Thyme.I don't know
Art

Salvia nana? Salvia scutellarioides?

Your plant sounds like Salvia chionophylla, which indeed is a rampant spreader. It grows like many Potentilla, with long runners that root and tuft out as they grow. The foliage should be grayish in full sun.

A medium-sized specimen, placed in a hanging basket seven feet high, can send runners cascading down the pot that will reach the ground still running under good growing conditions.

This behavior leads to an image of the plant adapting to vernal streams in the hills of the Chihuahuan desert. As the rains come, they carry humus and silt down the slope until they reach impediments. like a patch of boulders, where the good earth is dropped and acts as a sponge.

I think S. chionophylla has adapted to these conditions, and sends out ample runners to find other local pockets of good, damp soil, roots quickly, then sets seed.

In what way is Salvia sagittata finicky? I've got one blooming in the greenhouse now but this is the first time I've tried to grow it, and I'd hate to lose it.

My attempts at sagittata in humid South Jersey were total failures. Once the dog days hit the plants died.

I have been meaning to try chionophylla in hanging pots combined with Russelia equitiformis as a hummingbird display. I have never seen it for sale.

Chionophylla has greyish leaves, whereas Voodoobrew has bright greenleaves. Still think it may be S. scutellarioides.

These were growing in a mostly shaded area, and literally covered the ground as a mat. I have an area where they'd work well.

The leaves were not grey, although this picture of S. chionophylla looks to be on target.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2148/2469359104_197428b668.jpg

Then again, this picture of S. scutellarioides looks close as well.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/176/368817931_b8da320292.jpg?v=0

So I guess the jury is still out. This was in a large community/ co-op garden very close to Strybing in San Francisco. They have quite a salvia collection, presumably shared with Strybing. I will take pictures when I am back in a couple of weeks, and ask if they will let me take some starts. :)

S. chionophylla is for sale here:
http://goodwincreekgardens.com/Index.asp

S. chionophylla has leaves that are no longer than 1/2 of an inch and has wiry stems. S. scutellaroides has much larger leaves, fleshy stems, and bigger flowers with a curved tube. Chionophylla's flowers are more face than tube, and scutellaria's has a fatter tube with relatively smaller lips. Once you see them side-by-side, you will easily be able to tell them apart.

S. sagittata is still my favorite blue, but just wanted to give an honorable mention to S. scutellarioides. It just started to bloom today (in the pouring rain...); the shade of blue is very nice! This is a plant I picked up on eBay.

Be careful with S. scutellarioides! In a warm climate, it can spread like crazy, rooting as it goes!!! Luckily it is killed by frost in England. Another which can be even worse for spreading is S. procurrens, from Argentina, and this is hardy! But very attractive foliage for ground-cover, and cute little blue and white flowers.

Thanks for the warning. :) I'm thinking of putting it on my shady bank, where not much else grows because of the CA redwood trees. I actually need something to spread there, for erosion control. Would this be a good candidate? The area gets a bit of afternoon sun. The S. cacaliifolia and the S. collinsii are pretty happy there.

I really like Salvia macrophylla (purple leave undersides) and S. mexicana (black calyx).

They are MUCH bigger than S. nemorosa though!

I am currently quite fond of the new hybrid S. macrophylla x sagittata Big Swing, which seems to have the best of both parents, including durability to hot, humid (read southeastern US) conditions.

All of the sages in this section have pure blue flowers. They are closely related to S. patens.

Here is a link that might be useful: S. macrophylla x sagittata Big Swing