THE STAR QUALITIES OF SALVIAS
These versatile, vibrant and in-vogue flowers will keep the show going in your garden long into the autumn
When an experienced nurseryman describes a plant as “a flowering machine”, you tend to sit up and take notice. Isn’t that what all of us would like in our gardens? And when you hear that he’s been studying and breeding salvias for 27 years, you can be sure you’re on to a winner if you take up his recommendation to grow it. Such a plant is Salvia ‘Pink Pong’, which will happily oblige by pumping out vibrant flowers from early June right through to October.
‘Pink Pong’ (living up to its name through its large raspberry-coloured blooms and highly aromatic foliage) is just one of the 250-plus salvias that Will Dyson grows at his nursery at Great Comp in Kent. Salvias have become fashionable in recent years, but when Will first started growing them in 1994 to brighten up the sunny central area of the seven-acre garden he curates at Great Comp, most people didn’t even know what they were: “By chance, I came across some of the salvias that plant collectors Jamie Compton, John d’arcy and Martyn Rix had recently introduced from Mexico and soon found that they thrived in the relatively poor but welldrained soil I offered them.”
Buoyed up by how good they looked, Will “set about buying every single commercially available salvia in the country” and in 2001 Dyson’s Nurseries were the first to stage a single genus display of them in the history of the Royal Horticultural Society. “I’m not like a stamp collector now, but I was then,” he adds, smiling. Salvias come from all over the world – South and Central America, USA, Europe and Asia – and there are more than 900 species in total, but Will is mainly drawn to the shrubby Mexican varieties since many of these are hardy and will generally overwinter well in the southern half of the UK.
“A lot come from limestone pavements in Mexico, so they’re chalk-tolerant. In fact, they will put up with a wide range of soil ph, but what they must
have is free-draining soil and plenty of sun (ideally more than half of the day) – although there are one or two exceptions that do better with a bit of shade, such as S. splendens and S. concolor,” Will says.
Because salvias were so little known when Will started growing them, he initially struggled to sell many, but when the showy red and white cultivar
S. ‘Hot Lips’ was introduced in the early 2000s, people soon began to realise what a versatile group they are. “The diversity of colour is incredible,” he says, “from white to almost black and everything in between. They’re scented, easy to grow and enormously appealing to insects – bees, butterflies, hoverflies and hummingbird hawkmoths.” Soon Will started his own breeding programme, seeking to differentiate from or improve upon existing cultivars. He’s introduced at least 20 new ones to the market, including two beautiful bi-colours – burgundy and red ‘Wine and Roses’ and pretty pale and dark pink ‘Dyson’s Joy’.
In the garden, Will often grows several different types together, with contrasting flower colour, or associates them with grasses such as miscanthus varieties. Rabbits are repelled by the volatile oils in many salvia leaves, so he has put the plants to good use by planting a hedge of shrubby Mexican varieties around his vegetable beds.
One of the most popular salvias of recent years has been S. ‘Amistad’, admired for its tall, dark purple flower spires, and although it’s a half-hardy herbaceous perennial and can be left in the ground over winter, Will sounds a note of caution: “It’s really important to keep an eye on and offer protection to S. ‘Amistad’ and varieties such as
S. concolor, S. ‘Amante’ and S. guaranitica because they’re prone to being eaten by slugs and snails when the new foliage emerges in May.”
Will advises that the best time to plant salvias is in June, July and August, which gives them time to bulk up and develop a good root system before winter. For the same reason, he recommends taking softwood cuttings in spring. “Autumn cuttings will also root readily but you run the risk of losing them to grey mould (botrytis) over winter,” he says. “Select
non-flowering shoots, cut just below a node, remove the lower pair of leaves and insert the cuttings into a free-draining mix of multipurpose compost and vermiculite or perlite.”
Pruning is something that Will believes needs more emphasis. With the shrubby Mexican varieties, he recommends pruning in early April, ready for them to begin flowering by late May-early June. Then he takes about a third of the growth off in mid-to-late July (known as the ‘Hampton Hack’), when the plants might be starting to look tatty. This will encourage side shoots and generate a fresh flush of blooms.
Will feels he was destined to become a gardener, having grown up within 100 yards of Sheffield Botanic Garden, with an uncle who encouraged his interest in plants from a young age, but his fascination with salvias came about by chance: “They appealed and I was fortunate in that they thrived here. Right plant, right place – works every time.”
DYSON’S NURSERIES Great Comp Garden, Comp Lane, St Mary’s Platt, Sevenoaks, Kent (07887 997663; dysonsalvias.com). The garden opens from 10am-5pm, March to October (01732 885094; greatcompgarden.co.uk).