Salvia cyanescens : a small herbaceous perennial found in Turkey and Iran, growing to 60cm H with basal growth and blue / mauve flowers in summer.
Salvia cyanescens: is a small clumping plant ideal for rockeries.
Flowers: mauve / pale blue, in a falcate shaped flower with a long curved hood and interesting lower lobes. The hood is spotted with purple to correspond with the beeline markings around the throat area.
The white stigma is well exerted from the hood ( almost like a snake ready to strike) Both the tube and side lobes are very pale and are flared out wide, with pale yellow markings on the middle lobe which is extended, acting as a landing place for bees and insects.
Flowers appear on long thin stems in whorls of 4-6 flowers at regular intervals on long racemes, almost like a candelabra.
Calyces: are green with maroon colouring at the tips and on exposed sides. Each short pointed lobe is nicely ribbed. Calyces remain well after the flower has dropped, drying to a nice dried grass colour while the seeds ripen.
Leaves: are a pale green, as basal growth , forming a small rosette. These are ovate to lanceolate, with shallow crenations along the margins and are covered with masses of silky white hairs to give a silvery appearance.
Salvia cyanescens: is a very attractive small herbaceous Salvia for a well drained sunny position in a rockery or on the edge of paths. It works especially well in a gravel garden with other self seeded low mounding shrubs, clumps and perennials.
As autumn fades and winter approaches, the plant will begin to die down, so it just needs to be tidied up, old leaves removed and a marker where it should appear in spring. Being winter dormant it is hardy to frosts and winter cold.
When the new season’s leaves appear, feed and mulch to keep the root area cool over the hot dry summer months.
Propagation: is by usually by seed, division and cuttings from the young basal growth.
Not available.