bahia,
Have you spotted the postings here on GW's Salvia Forum by noted grower/hybridizer of Salvias, Rich Dufresne? We stopped at his Carolina nursery several years ago. A most enjoyable visit. I had to leave my Salvia collection behind in our recent move. Did save seeds, however, which are just beginning to sprout in the cold frame. S "Indigo Spires" tends to be leggy here so I plant Georgia savory (Clinopodium georgianum) at the base. It has a pleasing small lavender/purple bloom. A terrific evergreen growing about 12", small-leafed, clumping perennial for heat and drought. The two work well together.

Interesting Nandina, as I don't tend to think of Salvia 'Indigo Spires' as being drought tolerant in California situations. This one does benefit from regular shaping to keep it full, and will always be more rigid and less floppy when grown in full sun. However, it also does very well in bright shade for me, where I let it intertwine with other things and it can get 8 feet tall. It also doesn't hurt that it will keep blooming until first frost here, which often means that it continues to bloom all winter long. I don't know the Clinopodium, which I don't think anyone grows here in California. We would more likely use something like Calamintha nepeta, which also is nearly everblooming and very similar in character to your Georgia Savory.

I know of Richard and his passion for Salvias, who is certainly experimenting with alot of these same tender Mexican species in his own garden, but which present so much more work to maintain in gardens which regularly freeze. I can't think that I have ever tried to grow any Salvia from seed, when they are so ridiculously easy from cuttings or divisions. They sure are a great genus for gardens, with such wide applications, although I find I hardly ever grow any of the annuals or winter deciduous herbaceous species myself. (Perhaps reflecting a bias towards any plant that disappears in winter)

bahai,
Sometimes I post too quickly. Meant that the Georgia savory is drought tolerant. Salvia does grow easily from seed. When I left our old garden the new owners had written in the purchase offer that I was to remove nothing from the yard, including cuttings. Sadly I had to leave many treasures but the financial gain from the house sale prompted us to agree.

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LOVE those Salvias!
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Las Vegas is a far cry from San Francisco and England but they do wonderful things for the landscape here too. I don't think you mentioned Salvia Clevlandii the bit blue flowered one pictured but besides flowering spectacularly in the spring it looks good year round and has a smell that reminds me of a Zane Grey novel - pure west,sagey and aromatic.

In the top pic the pink flowered Salvia greggi 'wild thing' flowers nine months a year here and keeps it's leaves the rest of the year. Also great in our yard is S. chamaedryoides with that pure blue flower hard to find in the plant kingdom. The California natives S. Pachyphylla and Dorrii are great. And from Texas the penstemon looking large wine red flowered S. Penstemonoides is spectacular.

These may sound like just a bunch of flowers but they are so much more, tough (they'd have to be to survive a summer here!) evergreen forgiving plants that can be depended on to perform in the landscape. And they are easy on the water which should be a concern to a lot of us these days.

Maria

Posting pictures of beautiful perennials on the Landscape Design forum?!? Don't you know that is just going to make everybody rush out and come home with a load of salvia plants with no plan on where to plant them! tisk...tisk! ;-)

I have grown the standard Salvia x superba 'May Night' for a few years. A couple years ago I grew some Salvia farinacea 'Blue Bedder' plants from seed and they really impressed me (and they have been hardy for at least one season). I purchased a pack of Salvia x superba seeds and I brought along a couple Salvia farinacea plants to my new home. I don't know of any Salvias that are evergreen in my climate...bummer.

- Brent

Yes Brent, you have caught me. I have been around this forum long enough to know I am very bad what with my not being able to resist a pretty face at the plant nursery and bringing home stuff with no notion of where to put it. Or succumbing to the plant porn mail order magazines and just figuring by the time they arrive I'll know what to do with my impulse purchases. Although trying to do things the 'right' way has not taken yet, as vice's go a person could have worse.

But really, calling those salvias, penstemons, grasses, etc. perennials. Since most of what I grow has year round presence and some of them are quite large I prefer to think of them as flowering shrubs and then I can pretend I'm landscaping instead of growing a flower garden:)

Maria,
In any case, and however you describe these plants, you have a knack for combining them, and in a very appropriate way for your severe climate! Even with this past January's severe cold some of these didn't act more as herbaceous perennials this winter? I didn't mention the species/cultivars you show because I don't garden with full sun, although I certainly do use the Cleveland Sage as a mainstay of dry, sunny gardens, the S. leucantha are everywhere here in California, and also love that scent of Cleveland Sage, which is as pungent as english lavender and can also be used as potpouri. The desert penstemons are much more of a struggle to keep alive here in the SF Bay Area, they tend to rot out in winter here.

I am curious as to what that tall wirey green plant is? I doubt it is a Restio, and doesn't really look like a grass, is it a broom of some sort? I have Retama monosperma in full bloom here at the moment, and love the wispy grayish green pendulous branches and thousands of fragrant white flowers tinged with pink. It does take some effort to keep it trained up as a small flowering tree, however, and I prefer being able to walk under it rather than it take up a 10 foot diameter of garden space as a shrub.

Bahia,
You are right it is a broom, Spartium junceum, a plant that would fit right in with your mediteranean theme. It is an accident where it is, we wanted a fountain there but couldn't find one we liked so we put this in 'temporarily'. I love the upward verticalness of it contrasting with the fountain like flow of the deer and pampas grass behind it and it is there to stay. And of course it has wonderful yellow flowers in the spring.

You are right about this winter, anything marginal is gone or severly damaged. The cassias normally overflowing with bloom this time of year look half dead. The myoporium which looks ten times as good as any lawn as a ground cover was killed to the base but the salvias and penstemons are fine. Clevlandii had a little tip dieback but nothing bad and the Parrys Penstemon and P. triflorus are blooming with superbus close behind.

I can't feel sorry for what you can't grow in San Fransisco as there is so much you can grow. You have a far broader plant palette to choose from than we do here. I grew up in Santa Rosa and often passed through and sometimes visited S.F. It's a beautiful city with immense character but I sure wouldn't want to have to get around by bicycle in it:)

Your retama monosperma sounds wonderful but I'm sure if our furnace of a summer didn't do it in here, our frosty winter would.

Maria

Maria,
You also have a beautiful garden, which puts the lie to people's assumptions that Las Vegas gardens can't be both beautiful and water conserving. I wouldn't be so quick to rule out growing Retama, it certainly loves heat, even though it is native to coastal Spain, Portugal and northern Africa, and my references say it is hardy if it gets enough heat to harden it off in summer... (I don't think that should be any problem for you in Las Vegas!) As it does start to bloom in winter, it probably would be best in a sheltered south facing courtyard or similar so the blooms don't get fried in a winter freeze.

I don't feel sorry for me either, with gardening here in the SF Bay Area, but we can't grow anything that really likes hot summers! I remember being most impressed with all the various Dalea species that you all can grow out there, and thinking that they would be pretty cool to grow here too, but I doubt they like our mild summers. And Ocotillo, don't even think of it!

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For someone from the Bay Area you sure do seem to know a lot about desert plants. Here are two great ones, Cassia nemophila and Parry's penstemon and my daughter.

Thanks for your kind words but our yard is definitely a work in progress. What for you and many of your fellow landscapers here would be easy I struggle with. My husband says my plants should all be on wheels I move stuff around so much. I am learning a lot and maybe the next house I'll do it "right" the first time.

Maria

Oh, and that Ocotillo, it is dramatic in leaf and stunning in bloom but most of the year - well - dead looking! I have resisted its charms so far.