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Perennial Salvia Plant Profile

September 23, 2016 by Jeanne Leave a Comment

Perennial salvia offers gardeners with hot, dry yards a beautiful flowering plant that attracts bees and butterflies. Depending on the varieties you plant in your garden, perennial salvia may bloom spring, summer, fall or a combination of seasons.

Bee on perennial salvia flower.

Growing Perennial Salvia

Perennial salvia, sometimes called sage, refers to a group of prolific, drought-tolerant plants. Within the salvia family, you’ll find annual salvia, perennial salvia, and biennial salvia. Culinary sage is in the salvia family, as is clary sage, a perennial grown for its aromatic flowers and leaves.

The perennial salvia varieties usually grow to a height of one to three feet tall, with a spread of about one to three feet as well. Colors include shades of blue, purple and white. The leaves are dark green and emerge from the center of the plant in spring, followed quickly by tall stems filled with small, beautifully colored flowers.

To grow salvia, you’ll need:

Full sun to partial shade: In northern climates, they tend to do better in full sunlight. In my zone 6b garden, they thrive in both afternoon shade and full sun.
Well-drained soil: Salvia can tolerate a wide range of soils. Add some compost to the soil before planting, and mulch after planting.
When to plant: Spring is the best time of year to plant salvia. They usually bloom the first year if you plant mature plants purchased from a reputable garden center. I have grown some perennial salvia from seed, such as clary sage, and it takes longer to get growing.
Water: They need an inch or more of water per week. Usually, that’s plenty in the temperate zones, but if there’s a long dry spell, water them.
Seeding: Certain varieties of salvia will self-sow if they’re happy with their location. In my own garden, “volunteer” perennial salvia appears around the parent plants throughout the garden, You can leave them where they are or transplant them to a new spot in the garden.

Uses for Perennial Salvia

Salvia makes a great border plant or accent plant in the garden. You can add it to your front landscaping around shrubs, or use it in the flower garden.

Salvia “May Night” and Oenethera (Buttercup)

I like to pair dark blue-purple salvia such as “May Night”, the perennial salvia pictured above, with bright yellow flowers. Oenethera, also known as buttercup, St. John’s Wort, yellow butterfly weed and similar flowers look great with dark purple salvia. If you have a garden that’s prone to drought, pair salvia with gaillardia, another sunny perennial that tolerates droughts well.

Gaillardia is also drought-tolerant and pairs well with salvia.

In my own garden, I use salvia in the landscape in several ways:

Front landscape: I love it as a landscape plant and grow plants along the sidewalk leading to my front porch.
Butterfly garden: It’s one of my favorite butterfly garden plants.
Border: I’ve used salvia to edge the wall under my kitchen windows, along with gladiolus.

For more information about growing salvia, please see the following resources:

Salvia “May Night” blooming in spring. It’s paired here in my garden as a front border plant with a pink peony.

Why Do Spring Flowering Trees Bloom in the Fall?

September 19, 2016 by Jeanne Leave a Comment

When spring flowering trees bloom in the fall, something is wrong. I heard about so many apple and cherry trees locally starting to bloom that I had to investigate. Then my own plum tree began blooming, and I knew I had to figure out the cause. The answer may surprise you.

Spring Flowering Trees Bloom in the Fall: A Sign of Distress

I learned through my research that when spring flowering trees bloom in the fall, it’s a sign of distress.

That’s not surprising given the drought and heat the trees and shrubs have experienced over the past several weeks. We went from a lovely spring with moderate temperatures and bountiful rainfall into adequate rainfall and temperatures in early summer, only to have the temperatures soar and the rain dry up by August.

Although many of us kept watering our plants, it may not have been enough. The plants warned us of this by when spring flowering trees bloom in the fall.

According to the New Mexico Cooperative Extension, when trees are stressed, they go into dormancy. When the stress conditions lessen, even a little bit, trees break dormancy to continue their growth cycle.

Here in Virginia, my best guess is this: the trees, such as my plum tree, became dormant during the excessive heat in August. The drought compounded their stress. As the heat abated, my husband began deep-watering the fruit trees. That was enough to snap them out of their dormant cycle and wake them up. They produced a few flowers as part of the natural “Hey, we’re awake!” cycle.

Thankfully, any trees or shrubs that you do have that broke dormancy and began to bloom will quickly realize their calendar is wrong and return to their normal cycle. I’m fond of repeating that “nature is resilient” and adaptable, and trees have been around far longer than people. Trees have survived centuries of warmth and freezing, Ice Ages and humid heat waves, and much more.

I’m fond of repeating that “nature is resilient” and adaptable, and trees have been around far longer than people. Trees have survived centuries of warmth and freezing, Ice Ages and humid heat waves, and much more.

It is important to know that when spring flowering trees bloom in the fall, they’re sending up a cry for help. They’re letting you know they were stressed. If you are aware enough, you can note the symptoms in the future and take steps to prevent it.

Ways to Extend the Growing Season

September 16, 2016 by Jeanne Leave a Comment

There are many ways to extend the growing season. As we reach the mid-point of September, it’s time to think about both how you want to extend the growing season and whether you want to or not.

Morguefile.com/(c) Nicola Avery

Extending the Growing Season

There are a few ways that gardeners can extend the growing season. This list isn’t exhaustive, but it does give you several choices to keep growing vegetables until the very coldest weather arrives.

You can…

Plant cold-resistant varieties: Some vegetable seeds have been hybridized for specific characteristics like heat tolerance or cold tolerance. Look for varieties for your region that are known to be exceptionally cold-hardy.
Mulch around your plants: A heavy layer of mulch such as pine straw (pine needles), garden straw, or other materials may offer some insulation.
Use row covers: Row covers or tunnels are covers made from arched PVC pipes or other materials covered with plastic. You can see one in the picture above, although the floating row cover (the blue or green material over the bed) is probably an insect barrier rather than a cold weather barrier. These row tunnels or covers form mini greenhouses that retain heat longer over your garden area, although they do not provide complete protection from the cold.
Cold frames: Cold frames are usually built onto the side of the house on a south-facing side. They are at ground level, or dug into the ground, and the frame is filled with glass. Because the lid of the frame is glass and set at an angle, it concentrates the sun’s rays and warms the interior. You can vent the lid to release heat on warm days and close it securely on cool days. You cannot grow everything under a cold frame, but you can grow many vegetables in them. In the springtime they help you get a head start on your planting when you start seeds in a cold frame. I have built them back in New York when I had limited gardening space to over winter my herb plants. A plan to build a cold frame is on the Purdue Cooperative Extension website.
Hot beds: A hot bed is similar to a cold frame but uses another source of heat in addition to the sun’s rays to warm the interior of the cold frame. Some use heating mats especially designed for garden work or greenhouses. In olden days, deep beds of manure would be used, but I doubt you have a family cow or horse for that! The Purdue site above also lists instructions for building hot beds.
Greenhouses: The ultimate luxury is a greenhouse. A greenhouse can be built against an existing structure, using one wall as a support, or it can be stand-along. My dad built our greenhouse against the garage in our tiny urban yard in New York. Yes, I grew up with a greenhouse, which is probably why I love the moist, green-growing smell of a warm greenhouse in the winter. There are plans online for building your own greenhouse from old windows. I don’t know if those work. The one my dad built came in a kit, and he and a neighbor set it up. There are greenhouse kits available for small buildings or professional companies to build and install them for you, depending on your budget.

Kits for Cold Frames and Other Garden Season Extenders

I am a DIY (do-it-yourself) kind of person. Whenever I can build something myself, I prefer to do it that way. To extend the growing season, you can choose from among many kits, plans and projects. Below are a few kits I’ve found that I like. These are all available from Amazon.

Advantek Cold Frame Greenhouse

The Advantek Cold Frame Greenhouse is beautiful! It’s small, so you probably can’t grow a lot of vegetables, but you could easily use this to over-winter your favorite herbs or other tender annuals. I love the design. It’s functional and beautiful.

Gardman 7650 Large Wooden Cold Frame, FSC® Certified Timber Frame, 35″ Long x 31″ Wide x 35″ High

Gardman’s double-sided cold frame is also quite attractive and durable. This one would look wonderful on an apartment balcony and would enable you to grow more on a balcony or patio over the winter.

Cedar Cold Frame

The Cedar Cold Frame above is made by Gardener’s Supply. If you’ve ever bought anything from them, you know it is of the highest quality. Cedar is naturally weather-resistant and durable. This should last a long time.

Sunshine GardenHouse, 6′ Wide – 6′ wide x 8′ long

I call this greenhouse “the gardener’s wish list” because let’s face it – who doesn’t wish for a greenhouse? It’s beautiful and functional, and not terribly expensive compared to other models I’ve seen. The size is just about right for a home garden or serious hobby gardener, and the features, including vents and shelves, are perfect.

To extend the harvest, you have choices from the simple to the elaborate, the inexpensive to the expensive. If you love fresh vegetables, learning how to extend the growing season is a fun project for late fall.