Salvia densiflora: is our flower for July.
This is a tall  bushy shrub 2-2.5mH with  furry small ovate leaves leaves and beautiful dense heads of blue/ mauve flowers .

Flowers: are all about the showy bottom lobes. The hood is almost non existent  and open with the stigma and anthers being prominent and in full view, being easily accessible by visiting bees and other pollinating insects.

The bottom middle lobe is fully exerted and frilly, with a blue/ mauve  coloured band around the edge and rest is white or pale blue/ mauve. This  acts as a beeline to attract bees and insects to the individual flower, guiding it further into the flower, brushing past the exposed stigma and anthers. The 2 side lobes are positioned to help funnel the insect towards the throat area, where they brush against the exposed anthers.
Each middle lobe is cupped until the flower is visited, then that lobe begins to hang down, indicating that the flower has been visited.

Flowers are in dense whorls around a green stem.Whorls have 6 flowers, but in multiple layers, so that when some flowers begin to fade and finish, other flowers begin to open and attract more insects, until the whole head of flowers have opened and finished.
Although the stigma and anthers are exposed, seed is rarely seen on these heads of flowers.
Flowers begin to appear in late autumn, continuing to flower through the winter months in to early spring.
All flowers are held above the foliage to attract passing bees and pollinating insects.

Calyces: are green, small, with each lobe ribbed and pointed. As very few of the flowers are pollinated, the calyces eventually drop off the dead flower head.

Leaves:  are small, slightly furry, ovate in shape, a soft mid green colour with rounded crenulations around the edges. Well veined to direct any moisture down the petiole and stem towards the roots.

Salvia densiflora  is a tall bushy shrub, well suited to a mixed border of shrubs at the back  or middle of the garden bed.
As this is an easy shrub to grow, place it with other similar type shrubs with light coloured foliage, easy to manage growing habits, that also flower in Autumn and Winter.

Grow with other pink, blue and purple flowering shrubs or shrubs with golden foliage to bring warmth to the garden in winter.

Maintenance: This shrub is easy to grow and manage, with  a light prune after flowering to keep new shoots developing and to keep the overall shape of the shrub domed and dense  Feed regularly  with any good fertiliser, liquid or pellet form will help to keep the shrub looking dense with new growth.

Propagation: is usually by cuttings of new tip growth which can be taken most time of the year, but usually with new growth after flowering has finished. See the propagation page for more tips on how to take cuttings.