Blue Marvel Salvia

A marvel indeed, the Blue Marvel Salvia is a super-easy-to-grow perennial plant that is hardy, deer and rabbit proof and oh, so lovely. It’s an easy way to bring blue into your garden, and that’s a color that works magic, both brightening and calming your colors at the same time. The gray-green leaves along the many stems make a great backdrop to the spikes of flowers, studded with hooded blue flowers growing out of dusky purple bases that stay even when the flowers are gone. A lover of sun and happy in dryness, it grows only a foot tall, so it’s perfect for filling the spaces along the front of a shrub bed, or mixing with other perennials (of any color) in more traditional perennial beds. Use it too in rock gardens, or on a sunny slope among boulders, gravel and Mediterranean plants. It is also happy in prairie or meadow gardens, mixed with ornamental grasses, cone-flowers, butterfly weed and black-eyed Susan. Its compact size also makes it perfect for planters and boxes, where it can be mixed with shrubs, annual flowers or other perennials.

• Beautiful blue flower spikes from late spring to fall
• Compact, foot-tall perennial perfect for the front of beds
• Drought and heat tolerant once established
• Attractive gray-green foliage
• Deer and rabbit resistant

Grow the Blue Marvel Salvia in full sun, and it will take a touch of shade too, but not too much. It will grow in just about any soil, of any type, doing especially well in alkaline soils. It must be well-drained though, as this plant doesn’t like wet soil. If you grow it in a planter, let the soil dry between each watering. Remove flower spikes once they stop producing new blooms – you will see new ones growing up around the old spike. This keeps it looking good and also encourages more flower spikes. Flowering may decline a bit during the full heat of summer, but come back again with cooler fall weather. Deer and rabbits won’t eat it, and it generally has no pest or disease problems. Cut the stems back to the ground in late fall, in preparation for the new, vigorous growth that will push up the next spring.