The Plant Lover's Guide to Salvias

by John Whittlesey

Salvias are available in a huge range of sizes, colors, foliage, and hardiness, with over 900 species and hundreds of hybrids. Salvia’s popularity stems from how easy they are to grow, their multiple medicinal and culinary uses, and the vibrancy of their blooms that cover every color in the spectrum from white to nearly black.  The Plant Lover’s Guide to Salvias features everything you need to know to grow this vibrant and fragrant plant. Plant profiles of 150 varieties highlight each plant’s type, habitat, size, hardiness, origin, cultivation, and use in the landscape. Additional information includes tips on design, how to grow and propagate salvia, where to view them in public gardens, and where to buy them.

Genres: Gardening, Plants, Horticulture

218 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2014

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved looking at all the different varieties of salvia, I never knew there were so many! This book contains 150 species of salvia alphabetically and I feel like it would benefit from a different way of organizing them. Unless you are just casually flipping through to look at the pictures, you are probably looking for a plant that you'll be able to grown in your zone so maybe organizing it by zone and then alphabetically. Overall a good and informative book

[Slee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Redolent with decadent color and brimming with enthusiasm for salvias, The Plant Lover's Guide to salvias is sure to kindle your passion for this beautiful plant, and to ignite your creativity in garden planning. Drawing from his extensive knowledge of the different varieties of salvias, John Wittlesey has pulled together easy to understand lists to help any gardener find the salvia that best suits her need, whether she prefers a salvia with dramatic foliage, such as Salvia officialis Icterina, or one best suited to cutting- like Salvia sclarea. Looking for something to fill in and add texture to a rock garden, this book will steer you in the right way. Need a fragrant but sturdy groundcover? Whittlesey has something for you as well. The Plant Lover's Guide to Salvias even has something for those who are tired of purple.

Detailed plant identification information and an explanation of their place in the world of pollination makes for an informative book, rather than just a pretty one. Of course, the most useful part is probably the section picturing each cultivar of salvia and explaining its type, habit, size, hardiness, origin, and landscape use. Of course, if you live in the cold northern expanses, you might have a moment's jealousy when you see the gorgeous cultivars that thrive in zone 10b. That said, I think I am going to try to incorporate some Salvia caespitosa into my garden this year. Not only is it beautiful, but it's suited to zone 5, and I have been planning a rock garden for a while now.

All in all, it is a beautiful, easy to follow, instructive book that incidentally has a lot of coffee-table value as well.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Salvias are another fragrant plant that is in the mint family. I enjoy growing salvias for their fragrance, beauty and most of all, their value to wildlife. I'm glad this value was highlighted throughout the book.

The book opens with the many ways to incorporate salvias into your landscape design. Different types of salvias are able to grow in many different types of environments, so there is most likely several types that can grow no matter where you are. Tender salvia, which can be treated as annuals are also discussed. I was very appreciative that salvias specifically for the wildlife garden was discussed.

There are beautiful pictures and descriptions of 150 types of salvias to grow. The most useful elements of the description are the hardiness zones for each and the uses in the landscape.

The section on growing and propagating is easy to follow and understand. Salvias are another easy plant to grow and this book should be helpful to any level gardener who would like to grown any variety of salvia. However, I still wish the sections were arranged with the growing and propagating section near the beginning.

This book was received for free in return for an honest review.

[Melony · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is fantastic! I never knew there were so many different kinds of Salvia/Sage. I live in deer country and was losing all my plants, I found the only ones that were not getting eaten were the salvias, with this book I have created a wonderfully diverse Salvia garden that the birds (hummers), bees and butterflies love. I highly recommend it.

[Carmen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought I knew a bit about salvias. I was right, I only knew a bit. Who knew they were related to sages, were deer resistant, and are in almost every continent? I did see some of my favorites. Unfortunately the book focused heavily on salvias grown in the warmer climates of California. Since it was a KEW gardens book, I was expecting more cold loving varieties to be featured.

[Katie W · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really love all of the books in this series! They are so beautiful to flip through and learn about different varieties of particular flowers and contain helpful information for gardeners.