I plant for the hummers, butterflies and bees every year.

Ward, your garden is going to be wonderful and colorful! You'll have to keep us posted and share pics.

Same here

Ward your garden sounds wonderful! I would love to see pictures!

Ward,

I'd love to see your photos also. Happy gardening.

I don't really do pictures, maybe at some point

That's ok.

Here are some pictures of Ward's work: http://www.fbts.com/portraits-...

Thank you @FBTS Kermit for sharing this wonderful article with photos, thank you @WardDas for your photos, for all you've done and continue to do!

Wished we lived a lot closer to see it year 'round!

Wow I am only about 45 minutes from there
Great article and pictures, thanks for the info and thanks Ward for your dedication to nature. Definitely a place I am going to visit!

Hello All

I am fairly new to Salvia's and to the forums looking forward to learning a lot from you all.

Here are the Salvia's I am ordering or have received for this year:

Salvia microphylla 'Heatwave Sparkle' 1
Salvia microphylla 'Wild Watermelon' 1
Salvia greggii 'Grace Pink' 1
Salvia greggii 'Lowrey's Peach' 1
Salvia x jamensis 'Shell Dancer' 1
Salvia x 'Elk Ruby Ruby' 1
Salvia x 'Elk Blue Moon II' 1
Salvia x 'Scarlet Spires' 1

Salvia darcyi 'Pscarl' 1
Salvia greggii 'Lipstick' 1
Salvia greggii 'Radio Red' 2
Salvia x 'Wendy's Wish' 3
Salvia 'Amistad' 2
Salvia greggii 'Black Cherry' 1

Salvia darcyi x microphylla Windwalker® 3
Salvia x 'Elk Plum Parfait' 1

All of the above from Flowers By the Sea.

I also picked up 1 Dancing Dolls (I think that is what it is called) and 3 Furman's Red from a local retailers.

Thanks everyone for the nice comments. I always read others lists too and am impressed with every one I have seen. I just haven't had as much time on here as my mom is still sick with a nasty infection in her hip joint. I am fortunate in that I have many areas of my yard that are a "blank slate". Obviously prior owners were not gardeners. So I am in heaven getting to plant the things I like best (and the hummingbirds, butterflies, bees, etc)!! I still plan to get several species of milkweed, start some lily of the valley to fill in an area on N side of my house, and of course more Salvias and Agastaches. I have both full sun and part sun areas and even my shady areas are not dense shade. So I feel very blessed to have so much area to fill with plants. Of course I am planting as many perennials as possible, and hoping to collect seeds or do cuttings on some that aren't hardy. But I think I will always want to add new ones every year.

Pretty sure one of my Scrophularia Macrantha is gone, the second is holding on but really not growing, except a few new very tiny leaves.

My order from Gardens in the Wood of Grassy Creek delivers tomorrow and the final list (I added a few) is:
2 S Guaranitica (the regular species with the darker blue flowers and green calyces)
2 S Guaranitica Argentine Skies
1 Centranthus Ruber coccineus
1 Filipendula Rubra
1 Spigelia Marlindica (Indian Pink)
1 S Azurea

@WardDas
Very nice article at FBTS website and pictures are gorgeous. I appreciate what you are doing.

@utahxericman

Welcome to garden.org! Welcome to the Agastache and Salvias forum!

Great salvia list! You've listed some of the ones I got (getting) this year and some of my favorites. Salvia x 'Elk Blue Moon II was sold out when I placed my third order, but I'll try next year to get it.

Happy you're here. Looking forward to seeing your pics.

@jg0613 Judy

Another great list! Looking forward to how salvia Guaranitica Argentine Skies grows for you and seeing pics. I've not grown that one, but am thinking about next year. Are you going to plant it in the ground or a container?

@Marilyn thanks I am looking forward to getting/taking pics of them as well. I just had 14 Salvias arrive today.

@Marilyn
I will be planting S Argentine Skies in ground (both of them). Almost everything goes in ground for me except I do have 2 good sized containers for my back patio and 3 for the front wide concrete walk that is really like a long front patio from my front driveway to the door, right next to the house. All my big salvias will be in ground, and probably all my salvias period. We have been using the containers for annuals, although that may change. I love the Salvias that spread by runners since I have the room in ground for them. IF I ever get to finish planting! My back patio is beginning to look like a nursery since so many of my plants are still in their pots. Between my mom being sick and still in the hospital and frequent rain/wind/storms that have prevented me from getting them planted, it is very frustrating! Hopefully we get a dry sunny spell soon - all it would take is a few days to dry up enough and I could get all the planting done in a day or max 2 days. They are so beautiful and healthy but will be even more so when they have room to grow fully!
I think you could easily plant S Guaranitica Argentine Skies in a large container and it would do just fine!

I think I'm going to get salvia Argentine Skies from FBTS next year.

I forgot to add, I finally got to make a quick trip to my local nursery and bought:
2 Convallaria Majalis (Lily of the Valley)
1 Asclepias Incarnata "Cinderella" (swamp milkweed)
1 Asclepias Syriaca (common milkweed)

Thanks Kermit. The park gardens are really starting to burst with flowers now. Unfortunately most of the plants there don't make good examples of the newer cultivars of greggii, microphylla and their hybrid kinfolk since they are mostly random seedlings, survivors of winters good and bad. One that is interesting and been there for 5 or 6 years is a seedling from greggii Big Pink. The flowers aren't as oddly shaped as Big Pink and are another example of raspberry color but they are just about as large.

By the way that is a great list of plants for Utah. I don't know your climate in any detailed way but that looks like a super list of plant most of which should return for you. You will need a bat to fight off the hummingbirds.

Argentina Skies is a great guaranitica and certainly one to try in Zone 6a. It is originally from a garden in SE Pennsylvania and is quite hardy if the soil is well drained in winter. It looks particularly fine with other darker flowered guaranitica. Another hardy choice to grow with it is Blue Ensign.

Luvsgrtdanes - you should let me know if you plan to visit. You might also want to know when we have planting day in the spring. On planting day we usually share plants among the gardeners and you will learn about growing and caring for what are finicky plants in the east . The cast of characters changes over time but it is a chance to get to meet fellow gardeners. The pleasure of meeting fellow travelers can't be overstated at least for me.

@wardDas a great article shared by FBTS on you. Yes I hope to have that problem with the humming birds soon, right now I have a couple of black chinned hummers visiting me. It will become a lot more busy once the rufous hummers arrive. I had a few salvias survive from last year (none that I purchased from Kermit made it but it was my fault I ordered them way too late in the year) ordered WAYYYYYY earlier this year that should fix my survival rates on the ones that are hardy for my zone, the ones that are not hardy I plan on doing what I did to my black and blue and red mountain sages last winter, I placed a large continuous piece of bark about a foot tall and foot long over a cut back (left about 2-3 inches) of stalk then put about a foot of mulch on the bark, I did this after the frost knocked them back in October or so. I removed the bark when temps warmed up the 1st weekend or so in April, I had white shoots on them, then I put walls of water around them all for about a month. I also had a few wild thing salvias survive the winter as well (2 of 5). I didn't do anything special with them. I have a seedling starting from my red mountain sage, so I'm excited to see how it turns out. Anyway, I am excited to be here and learn from you all.