Salvia daghestanica is blooming its head off, and I'm loving it. It makes a nice combination with the darker Salvia coahuilensis. The lavender is starting to make its spikes, and even not in bloom, the texture is fantastic. Click to embiggen. I hate to say it, but I must admit that S. daghestanica's sheer gorgeousness is more impressive than the similarly colored Penstemon linarioides which has been a favorite of mine. This is especially so this year when P.lin has had a short blooming season and less blue color. P. lin has a smaller stature of only 6-8 inches tall (in bloom), and flowers on some plants face outwards, so not as to relate to humans very readily whereas S. daghestanica is taller, to 16-18 inches (in bloom). P. linarioides has better winter color and form however, silver to red leaves, whereas S. daghestanica turns to shriveled grey-brown mush. Both need very little water.
Penstemon grandiflorus is a penstemon from the plains. It was a bit of a challenge to get started. The first year, I bought a packet of seed from Plants of the Southwest, planted them in a pot, stratified them by keeping the pot in the refrigerator for four months. Germination was prompt with warmer temperatures, with a high percentage. They clearly needed bright sunlight, and were placed outside. By evening, the birds had eaten every seedling. Not one was left. I tried again the next year, being careful to protect the seedlings from birds. The resulting plants were planted in my no-irrigation garden. Results were spotty over the next few years, with the plants seeming to want more water than they received (the plains states get more water than Albuquerque does), and the rabbits liked the stems, making for great disappointment as stems appeared and almost reached blooming when they were mowed down by the rabbits. This winter, I transplanted the two survivors into my blue garden and they seem much happier. They'll need another year to settle before I'll really tell. Plants produced several stems but aborted all but one on each plant. I think it's just because the root system isn't yet large enough to support many flower stems. FLowers are 1-1/2" long by 1-3/8" wide at the face.
This is a plant that I would consider a failure rather than the successes that I'm happier posting. But the failures are just as important to acknowledge. It's just not as much fun to do. This is Geranium 'Johnson's Blue'. It is supposedly a vigorous plant, and I love the blue flowers. Planted last year, this year it is a scraggly, floppy plant, and although the flowers are nice, they certainly aren't as abundant as I'd hoped. I'd planted this in partial shade due to the heat we get, but I think this plant would like more sun and cooler temperatures to be really happy.
I was convinced to purchase Teucrium orientalis since 1) it is a blue teucrium and I longed to grow the shrubby grey-leafed Teucrium fruticans but T. fruticans has turned out not to be hardy enough for my garden, 2) it had a nice fragrance blooming in the pot at the nursery. I decided to give one a try last year. The lack of vigor did not impress me and several times I thought it was a goner. But some plants just need some time to settle in. This spring it slowly but steadily grew. It just started blooming a few days ago, and so far the show is not very impressive, nor is there any hint of a scent. Hopefully as the season progresses, things will improve.
One of the Salvia pachyphylla just started blooming, while the others are just barely showing stem lengthening that is a sign of bracts and blooms to come. This is quite a variable species in my yard, prone to suddenly dying with or without provocation (sensitive to moisture levels and soil quality - a little too much water is bad, too much organic material around its roots is bad). The flowers on seedlings from the same plant can have quite different form, and the seedlings vary considerably in vigor. Predominantly, the variability in flower production is the size of the flower heads (vary from golf-ball sized to baseball sized), but also in the intensity of bract color. Some seedlings grow very slowly, while others in the same batch grow at least three times as fast.
Still, as a species for the garden, it has a lot going for it. The plant form is a nice rounded subshrub, the leaves are an attractive silver, and the pungency of them makes them unattractive to rabbits (just be aware that brushing against them will leave the herbal scent on your clothes or skin). The leaves densely cover the frame of the plant, and the plant is evergreen, providing winter structure. The plants tolerate receiving no water at all throughout the summer (once well established) although some water helps plants look better (not too much or you'll run the risk of rot).
The bracts and blooms (and the attractive leaves) never fail to attract comment from visitors. Although I am not particularly fond of that particular red-violet shade of the bracts, it does match quite nicely the pads of 'Santa Rita' prickly pear and the red-violet blooms of cholla. The bloom begins now (late May-June) and the show will continue with flowers and bracts for the next four months (!). It self sows very modestly in my yard, and I suspect that with time, the plants most adapted to my conditions will predominate.
Salvia chamaedryoides is a borderline plant for me. My plants were planted last year, and all three survived the winter by growing from the base. The above-ground portions predominantly did not survive (only a few stems). This makes the plant much smaller in my yard than in lower elevations around town, and blooms later and less densely. The color is an amazing deep blue, and it will bloom steadily from now until frost. Despite being borderline, these qualities make it a keeper.
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