We began publishing our Everything Salvias blog in 2010 for your enjoyment and to help you "get it right" when growing sages that are often unavailable at local garden centers.
It seems like there is an endless bounty of stories to be told. But that's to be expected when covering a genus containing an estimated 900 species -- the largest group within the mint family (Lamiaceae). In addition to Salvias, we write about other species that are either mint family members or low-water companions for our many drought-tolerant Salvias. We welcome comments as well as suggestions for future blog posts.
To access articles rapidly based on your interests, please click on the categories below, which include do-it-yourself videos (Views from the Garden). But please note: This is a dangerous place for a sage lover.
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Posted: Thursday, September 11, 2014
Synopsis:
Before planting a Salvia in the ground or moving it to a larger container, you should determine whether it has become rootbound and needs to have its rootball loosened. Salvias tolerate being rootbound more easily than most flowering plants. However, a Salvia needs extra attention before replanting if its roots dangle from the pot's drain holes and are so dense that they overwhelm the soil. Then the rootball feels too firm and can't be replanted as is. In this video from Northern California's Flowers by the Sea family farm, FBTS horticulturist and co-owner Kermit Carter removes several plants from their containers to show different stages of heavy rooting. Carter demonstrates a variety of methods for loosening roots and soil before replanting. FBTS specializes in the Salvia genus, which contains about 1,000 species. This video is part of the FBTS Everything Salvias Blog series Views from the Garden.
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Posted: Thursday, September 11, 2014
Synopsis:
Orange is an aggressive color in the garden. It doesn't purr. The fuzzy, shaggy, hot orange flowers of Lion's Ear (Leonotis) growl for attention. Their stems are so tall that they may reach up to 6 feet, towering over the foliage like gawky Dr. Seuss blossoms. You'll find them at Flowers by the Sea Online Nursery.
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Posted: Monday, September 8, 2014
Synopsis:
Portraits in Gardening is a blog series from Flowers by the Sea that profiles customers who are passionate about the Salvia genus. This article focuses on wildlife gardener, birder and dedicated volunteer Ward W. Dasey III, who grows Salvias at New Jersey's Palmyra Cove Nature Park. Dasey and nature-loving friends proposed the park to make bird watching easier on the Delaware River.
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Posted: Monday, August 25, 2014
Synopsis:
Many gardeners and wildlife lovers in states with recurrent drought choose to increase the number of native plants in their yards. This is especially true of Texas, where statewide drought began in 2010 and hasn't yet abated. Native plants appeal to local wildlife, including pollinators. To help gardeners from Texas and the Southwest who want to create wildlife habitat, Flowers by the Sea (FBTS) suggests Salvias appropriate for Texas and Southwest gardens.
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Posted: Saturday, August 9, 2014
Synopsis:
Ask Mr. Sage is a question-and-answer feature based on topics raised in calls and emails that Flowers by the Sea receives. This post concerns why U.S. Postal Service priority mailing containers don't fit our plants and their shipping prices for larger containers can't match those of our shipper, UPS. We choose to keep plant prices affordable by charging accurate shipping costs based on customer locations.
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Posted: Saturday, August 9, 2014
Synopsis:
Ask Mr. Sage is a question-and-answer feature based on topics raised in calls and emails that Flowers by the Sea receives. This post concerns the FBTS "Email Me When Back in Stock" button -- a feature on our plant description pages that allows customers to request notification as soon as out-of-stock plants become available again.
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Posted: Thursday, August 7, 2014
Synopsis:
The FBTS Sage Experts series focuses on Salvia specialists -- both amateurs and professionals -- in settings ranging from botanic gardens to universities. This article focuses on Jesús Guadalupe González-Gallegos of the University of Guadalajara, an expert in the taxonomy of Salvias native to Western Mexico. He discusses the megadiversity of Mexican flora and problems involving incorrect identification of sage species.
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Posted: Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Synopsis:
Southern California urban homesteader Kate Richards offers good advice for incorporating Salvias into country-style bouquets. Richards gained her flower-arranging experience while working in the floral industry, but you don't have to be a florist to design beautiful bouquets.
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Posted: Monday, August 4, 2014
Synopsis:
Top-10 lists of hummingbird favorites almost always contain Salvia and Lobelia, because each genus is nectar rich and offers many species in bright reds, oranges and pinks. Hummingbirds have a weak sense of smell, but bright colors, such as those of Lobelias, lure them to flowerbeds. They are particularly devoted to the types grown at Flowers by the Sea.
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Posted: Saturday, July 26, 2014
Synopsis:
Every now and then, we visit other websites for promising recipes containing sage. For this post, we dropped in at food writer Claire Adas’ Out of the Ordinary cooking website for a sauce of summer squash and sage.
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Posted: Friday, July 25, 2014
Synopsis:
Plants contribute to our lives in many ways -- as sources of beauty, building materials, clothing, food, fragrance, medicine and oxygen. Add hope and fulfillment to the list, because that is what three abundantly blooming Salvias from Australia add to the lives of seriously ill children. These plants form the Wish Collection -- Wendy's Wish Sage, Ember's Wish Sage, and Love and Wishes Sage. Flowers by the Sea is one of the first online nurseries in America to sell all three. Although we have grown and sold Wendy's Wish for a number of years, Ember's Wish and Love and Wishes are new at FBTS.
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Posted: Saturday, July 19, 2014
Synopsis:
The Sage Experts series focuses on Salvia specialists — both amateurs and professionals -- in settings ranging from botanic gardens to universities. Kathy Musial, curator of live collections at Southern California's Huntington Gardens, is the subject of this profile. If you imagine a great dinner party involving lots of garden talk, Kathy Musial would be an ideal guest who could share her experiences plant trekking in Australia and Chile or co-managing some 14,000 varieties of plants at Huntington.
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Posted: Friday, July 18, 2014
Synopsis:
Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay once housed prisoners, many of whom helped beautify "The Rock" by working in prison gardens. Nowadays, volunteer gardeners keep the island flowering with the help of long-blooming, drought-tolerant Salvias
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Posted: Monday, July 14, 2014
Synopsis:
Portraits in Gardening is a new blog series from Flowers by the Sea that profiles customers who are passionate about the Salvia genus. This post features Illinois gardener Michael Kampf who has succeeded in growing many kinds of Salvias despite the frigid winters and fiercely hot summers of the Chicago area. He began gardening when 6 years old with encouragement from his mother and fell in love with Salvias at age 12.
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Posted: Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Synopsis:
Flowers by the Sea ships plants year round. However, at any given time we may be out of stock for plants in high demand. Clicking on the Email me when back in stock button causes you to receive an email immediately when the plant is back in stock. Production of some plants is limited. Some can only be obtained for spring delivery; others require special ordering.
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Posted: Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Synopsis:
Most bat faces only look beautiful to their mothers. However bat-faced Cuphea schumannii seems pretty as punch to hummingbirds in search of a sweet drink of nectar. If you take a close look at the ragged, open end of each flower, you'll see two, tiny, lavender petals standing straight up like bat or mouse ears. So, despite its common name, Orange Cigar Plant, this species is known as a bat-faced Cuphea. Aside from being excellent for attracting pollinators, Cupheas are becoming important agricultural crops that reduce pesticide use.
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Posted: Sunday, June 22, 2014
Synopsis:
Sage Experts is a new feature on our Everything Salvias blog. It focuses on horticulturalists -- both amateurs and professionals -- in settings ranging from botanic gardens to universities. All have expertise in cultivating plants in the Salvia genus. This first profile talks about Argentina's Rolando Uria, an agronomy professor at the University of Buenos Aires and a presenter at the 2013 Salvia Summit II. Uria is well known for discovering Salvia 'Amistad'.
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Posted: Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Synopsis:
Native plants, including California's many indigenous sages, are like the boys or girls next door who were overlooked until outsiders discovered their good looks and other fine attributes. Flowers by the Sea grows hardy, drought-resistant California Salvias that are native to a broad swath of the West Coast ranging from Northern Baja to Southern Oregon. Many tolerate heat. They are well suited to waterwise landscapes, including dry gardens.
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Posted: Monday, June 16, 2014
Synopsis: Ask Mr. Sage answers questions based on calls and emails that Flowers by the Sea receives. This one talks about how we work with you if a glitch arises in shipping. It concerns addresses to which Flowers by the Sea can mail plants.
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Posted: Saturday, June 14, 2014
Synopsis:
Ask Mr. Sage answers questions based on calls and emails that Flowers by the Sea receives. This post concerns Salvias that are edible and tasty. Although we are unaware of any Salvia species (true sages) that contain poisonous parts, we are cautious about which ones to recommend for culinary use. A link to our culinary species is included along with links to our blog posts about cooking with sages.
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Posted: Saturday, June 7, 2014
Synopsis: Ask Mr. Sage answers questions based on calls and emails that Flowers by the Sea receives. This one explains the many factors that can cause the color of a plant's flowers to vary from one location to another. The blossom color of Flowers by the Sea plants in your garden may not always exactly match the colors in our photographs.
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Posted: Sunday, June 1, 2014
Synopsis:
Ask Mr. Sage answers questions based on calls and emails that Flowers by the Sea receives. This one explains how to cruise the Flowers by the Sea online catalog to find butterfly and hummingbird Salvias that can handle lots of moisture.
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Posted: Saturday, May 24, 2014
Synopsis:
The Plant Lover's Guide to Salvias by John Whittlesey not only is a lavishly photographed, well-organized resource about the Salvia genus but also a lovely coffee table book that may inspire anyone who opens its pages to spend time in the garden. Whittlesey says his Canyon Creek Nursery in rural Northern California has an "extreme" Mediterranean climate with little rainfall from summer through early autumn when temperatures can reach up to 108 degrees F.
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Posted: Sunday, May 18, 2014
Synopsis:
Ask Mr. Sage answers questions based on calls and emails that Flowers by the Sea receives, including ones concerning problems with plants customers have purchased. This article covers our unconditional guarantee to refund or credit purchases without making customers jump through hoops. It also touches on the process FBTS goes through in trying to diagnose plant ailments.
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Posted: Friday, May 16, 2014
Synopsis:
Portraits in Gardening is a new ongoing feature in the Everything Salvias blog of Flowers by the Sea. This first post focuses on Dave and Eleanor Holland's Northern California garden, which beckons bees, butterflies and hummingbirds due to its abundance of sages.
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