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Salvia flowers - video
Disappears, I’ll love the rest of the world, I love you, I love youLong and luxuriantly flowering plants, not demanding to the soil and watering, are familiar to most gardeners. But few people suspect that several hundred species and varieties of garden salvia belong to the genus to which the brilliant salvia belongs. Among them is sage.
Salvia plants belonging to the family of Luminous plants are found all over the world from Europe, Eastern Siberia and Asia to the Americas. Most of them are perennials up to 120 cm high, with erect stems, covered with oblong leaves, and two-lipped flowers, gathered into spike-shaped inflorescences. Seeds from cultivated and wild plants ripen within a month after the end of flowering and up to 3 years can be used for planting.
The leaves of many varieties of salvia are long, whole or, more rarely, pinnate. The color of flowers is not limited to the usual bright red today. It is rather an exception to the rule. Wild species affect the richness of the palette from white to deep purple in color, and therefore cause increasing interest among growers. But according to the established tradition, the name “Salvia” was firmly established for the varieties of sparkling salvia, and the plants with blue tassels are often called sage.
Salvia sparkling: photo of flowers Salvia splendens
The most famous of the garden species of salvia is from Brazil and has been used in culture for almost 200 years. In the homeland, bushes or grassy plants with hard, upright tetrahedral stems can reach 20–80 cm in height and bloom en masse during the summer and autumn.
Before the beginning of the active selection work, the salvia brush is brilliant, the photo of flowers which today amaze with the richness of colors and pomp of inflorescences were not so spectacular. At the disposal of gardeners were only varieties with red color rims and cups, loosely seated on the peduncle.
Today, in addition to red flowers, salvia can be more and more often found in brilliant white, violet lilac and even two-tone coloring.
Salvia officinalis( Salvia officinalis)
Salvia - sage, familiar to people for more than one thousand years, has been used in medicine, perfumery and cooking. Homeland plants - the state of the Mediterranean and the region of Asia Minor. In favorable conditions, the perennial shrub reaches a height of half a meter, and in Russia it can be grown only through seedlings as a one-year crop.
Sage is easily distinguished by its elongated silver leaves and violet, collected in sparse vertical inflorescences of flowers.
Medicinal species of salvia and varieties for the garden with variegated leaves, bloom at the height of summer.
Salvia red( Salvia coccinea)
Red salvia is very similar to the photo of flowers and medicinal sage, and its more spectacular relative - brilliant salvia. Semi-shrubs from Brazil in European countries and Russia are cultivated as an annual, but in this case the plant grows to 50–70 cm.
In this species, straight pubescent stems with ovoid leaves and carmine-red flowers, collected in sparse spike inflorescences of 5–8 pieces. The corollas, no longer than 3 cm in length, bloom in mid-summer, and the plant retains its decorativeness until the coldest. If you compare red salvia with varieties of brilliant, the first one loses in brightness, although it is used by growers for a hundred years longer.
Today, interest in moisture-loving salvia, preferring the sun and heat, is constantly growing. The plant is well propagated by seeds and can be planted in open ground and in greenhouses.
Salvia fine-leaved( Salvia microphylla)
This species of salvia - sage in its wild form is still found in southern Europe, in France and in the Mediterranean countries. Here it is a perennial evergreen, grows to 100–120 cm. The flowering of salvia lasts from June to the end of October.
But small brushes of carmine flowers are not the only characteristic feature of the species. Greens and stems of evergreen dwarf shrubs contain many fragrant essential oils used by perfumers and physicians.
Salvia mealy( Salvia farinacea)
A picky plant that blooms from August to late fall appeared in Russian flower gardens from Central America. Salivia mealy has few branching straight stems up to 90 cm in height. The inflorescences reach a length of 20 centimeters and effectively rise above neat, pyramidal bushes.
The cups, beaters and the upper part of the peduncle are colored in blue or lilac tones, which persist even when the plants are drying.
The leaves are elongated, ovate and, unlike many species and varieties of salvia for the garden, have no characteristic edge.
Salvia motley( Salvia viridis)
The value of this migrant from the south of Europe and Asia is not in bright inflorescences or essential oils, but in the motley brightly colored leaves-bracts on the top of 40- or 60-cm stems. Oblong leaves and shoots pubescent.
The inflorescence reaches 30 cm and combines up to 6 medium-sized flowers of pinkish or light purple shade. Flowering salvia or sage begins in June, and the plant's appearance is maintained throughout the growing season. The only feature that impedes the use of variegated forms in culture is lodging the stems, if you do not establish support in time.
Salvia verticillata( Salvia verticillata)
Turbid variety of sage in its wild form is found throughout Russia, in Western Europe and some parts of Asia. To learn a few varieties of salvia can be on purple flowers collected in dense, whorls located on high peduncles. The stems of this species branch only at the base and grow to a height of 50 centimeters. The leaves, like the shoots, are heavily pubescent and attached to the stems on long petioles.
Flowering whorled salvia begins in July, and until September its elegant inflorescences can be seen in the forest glades and personal plots.
Sage nutmeg( Salvia sclarea)
Powerful plants of meter height are grown in one-year or two-year culture. On straight stems, elongated with oblong, serrated leaves along the edges. This type of salvia gives an abundant green mass. Leaves sometimes reach a length of 30 cm, but as they move toward the inflorescence become smaller.
Decorative flowers are given not by ordinary flowers, but by leaves-bracts. Today there are varieties of salvia with white, pink or purple corollas. The blooming sage species from June to September is well known as a valuable medicinal and oil-bearing plant.
Salvia nemorosa
The sage growing in the zone of the Russian forest-steppe has powerful stems with a height of 30–60 cm and dense, candle-like inflorescences reaching 40 centimeters in length. Both corollas and large bracts have a purple or azure color.
If hairs are noticeable on the stems, then the long, pointed leaves of the oak salvia are completely smooth with the teeth along the edges. Decorative plants are preserved from mid-summer to mid-September.
Salvia meadow( Salvia pratensis)
A half-meter-tall plant is distinguished by a multitude of straight, branching stems and peduncles covered with violet corolla. Sage meadow is similar to salvia oakwood, but the latter is much more powerful, and its shoots are not so branchy. In each whorl from 4 to 6 flowers, occasionally small leaves can be seen on the stems, which become much larger to the rosette.
Flowering meadow sage passes in two waves. The first, like in many species and varieties of salvia for the garden, begins in June, and the second bloom enlivens the site in September.
