This is a beautiful Salvia found by my late friend and Salvia collector, Robin Middleton. See here
It has proved to be a very popular one, now sold by several nurserymen in Britain!
It came from seed found on the cross Salvia ‘Silkes Dream’ see here
This was the most vigorous seedling, which Robin grew on and gave it the name I suggested to him in honour of my dear friend Penny, who was a beautiful girl and left this world far too young.
She really loved the salvias of which I planted several in her late gardens. And she particularly loved this colour; so a more apt tribute couldn’t be found! To my surprise it has survived many cold winters here in the Midlands. But some shelter would be recommended.
Penny’s Smile’ is a bushy, upright plant to 1.2m high, evergreen if not cut back by frost, with small, aromatic, pale to mid-green leaves. It has large, showy individual flowers, similar size as one of its known parent, ‘Silkes Dream’ and the inflorescences are also well above the foliage and with many flowers for a long flowering season!
In the first chapter about the salvias I told the story how I became hooked to them and this time I would like to introduce you to all of the Rodbaston ones!
There are 6 ‘survivors’ of the original 7 which is much better than I had hoped a few months ago!
The most easy, versatile ones for use in sunny borders or pots are which I call the ‘Shrubby, small leaved Salvias’. These are hardy to at least – 10 degr. C. and much more than this in my experience. Here below are some tips on how to grow them:
As I like this to be a very informative blog on salvias, I like to start on:
Something about the history, of mainly the New World Salvias:
Salvia x jamensis ‘Pat Vlasto’ named after one of the pioneer growers of Salvias
Here in Britain we had Pat Vlasto, Beth Chatto, Beryl Davies (from former Probus Demonstration Garden in Cornwall) and later Christine Yeo to thank for the wonderful pioneering work the’d done with salvias!
The flowers are mostly purple but I also had sometimes violet flowering forms! Both Beryl Davies and Christine Yeo (part I & part II) have written some of the first little handbooks on salvias, which are rare and not easy to get hold off any more.
Today I had the universe shining on me, as I think, …… but don’t say it too loud, just in case it is a dream?
I may have found some premises to grow my first few salvias!
We had a tip through the former boss of my partner to have a look and enquire at this nearby nursery, which has been a nursery since the 1920s, so we were told by the now sole owner there since 2001! She rents out all the various buildings and polytunnels on site and also makes a living of breeding poultry, ducks and peacocks / hens.
She showed us the entire site and then we walked into a vacant tunnel which had a 10 meter x 1.80 meter (?) propagation bench in it, which will be perfect to start my collection!
Can’t wait to start buying in my ‘Mum’ plants!
I already know that I would like to grow most of the same ones I used to have at Rodbaston College and I’ve tracked many of them down to several nearby nurseries.
Salvia ‘Hot Lips’ is an unusual ‘fun’ salvia with white, red or, when it behaves: two-toned flowers!
This year I would like to start a whole new‘New World Salvia collection’!
First this will be virtual on my blog, but hopefully I will soon be able to grow all these lovely plants into a fantastic collection in reality! I have used this signal red colour as many salvia flowers are of this colour. Like the popular variety above, which has the funny bi-colour! But there are also many blue ones or violet and pink or do we call it maroon or purple (!) and yellow as well as all other colours in between!
They are beautiful: grown for their very vivid colours, mostly flowering en masse, for long periods on end and they are easy to fit into any area of your garden or grown into a container on your patio.
Another less known fact is that the foliage often has a delicious fruity fragrance.
I like to tell you all about them….
My love affair with the Salvias began in the last century; in 1998 to be precise!
This is since I became Head Gardener at Rodbaston College, which is now after amalgamation with 3 other colleges in the County, known as South Staffordshire College, Rodbaston Campus near Stafford in the U.K.
The collection had been started by the former Head Gardener, with the then Head of Horticulture , who both thought it would be a good idea for the College to have a National Collection and they decided it should be the genus Salvia.
Salvia semiatrata is an unusual tender Salvia found in Oaxaca, Mexico
But when I started to get to know the genus and in particular the New World ones with all its different species, cultivars and hybrids I slowly built it up to be ‘National Collection of New World Salvias’, which it gained official status in 2002.
Three expeditions to southern Mexico, mainly in the State of Oaxaca and the organisation of a Salvia Study Day at the College got me more and more hooked. I made several very influential friends in the Salvia world to which I still owe my gratitude.
My story below mentions several very influential people in the Salvia world and in particular in Britain. I have copied some information from several books about salvias, as these are often in better words then what I can write myself. You’ll find links for these books, so you can purchase them yourself if you want! They are certainly worth it if you get hooked!
Sea campion or Silene uniflora at Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door, Dorset (picture by Mike Poulton)
This is the second part of useful (with many ornamental) members of the Pink family or officially the Caryophyllaceae. The first part can be found here.
I am very fond of this family as well and have been growing several native and non native species from seed.
Click links for more info and pictures from various websites. Scientific/Latin Name usually has link from the Online Atlas of the British Isles and Irish Flora. Pink background means a warning use (= poisonous!) or medicinal use, green for other uses and blue for plant habitat, interesting facts or wildlife use.
If described in the Flora of Birmingham and the Black Country it will be highlighted by FBBC in the Content page.
In Part 1 we covered Subfamily Alsinoideae which has 11 genera. In Part 2 we will cover another 11 genera in 2 subfamilies:
2 Subfamily Paronychioideae with 5 genera (genera 12-17)
3 Subfamily Caryophylloideae with 6 genera (genera 18-24)
Links on the scientific names is info from the Plant Atlas 2020. Links on the common names are often Wikipedia, where you can also find pictures in Wikipedia Commons or occasionally from another website. The coloured backgrounds are blue for the habitat information as found in the Online Plant Atlas 2020 as well as for general interesting facts. Green is for all sorts of uses such as food, ornamental, wildlife, etc. Pink is for medicinal use.
If described in the Flora of Birmingham and the Black Country it will be highlighted by FBBC in the Content page.
This decided me to write about them as well as other members of this reasonably large family of the Buttercups or Ranunculaceae. It is a rather primitive family, with its simple flowers or only number 36 in Stace.
The more common Russian Comfrey thriving on the Bee Garden at Borneo Street allotment!
There is so much information concerning the comfrey which is also, like the plants in the blog of last week, in the Boraginaceae Family. This week therefore, my post will concern itself purely with comfrey.
Pictures by Matt Summers, Mike Poulton and contributors from Wikipedia Commons.
