I always look for Victoria Blue Salvia for my garden. Some years I don’t have to buy it since it is a biennial and returns the next season. Its small spiked purple flowers consistently bloom once it gets started. Though it’s called “blue”, there are very few truly blue flowers in nature.
This year, I planted the Victoria Blue’s in several pots—I got stuck once again with buying a whole pack (of 6) that I didn’t need. (The two big home improvement stores sold only 9-packs and large single pots. I don’t want or need that many. I’d rather buy one or two smaller plants that will grow into their places. With the return to downtown/center city living and the increase in multi-family communities, small gardens are the “in thing”—garden centers take note.) Location mattered. The ones in my long Italian terra cotta pots languish while the ones in the larger, deeper pot are flourishing to the point of overcoming their neighbors.
While the salvias’ arching lean is artistic, they were mashing and shading the heliotrope next to them. This heliotrope (the first one I bought) had enough trouble getting started, having severely dehydrated while riding home from the farmer’s market in the heat of the back window. Over the weekend I got a green plastic-coated heavy wire stake with a partial ring to prop up the Victoria Blue. (You can barely see it in the lower left of the picture) Though it now has an unnatural lean away from the sun, it will straighten its course when the sun returns.
Whenever that will be… We’re forecast to have heavy rain all week from Tropical Storm/Depression Lee. The humidity is bathtub high; the plants love humidity and they’ve got it. I’m not as big a fan though the birds don’t seem to mind. I could barely see the brown birds down the electric line loudly chirping their “call and response” but they looked like thrashers. A distant response answered their call.
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