I’ve been gardening in Atlanta for quite some time, carrying on a love affair with herbs and many folks know me as the herb lady. However my garden and plant interests are wide-ranging. Back around 1985 or -88 or so, I was a card-carrying member of the Royal Horticultural Society in Great Britain and therefore eligible for their seed exchange program. I poured over their list and carefully selected the limited number of seeds I was allowed to import.
One of them was Silver Sage, Salvia argentea. None of my gardening circle of friends had ever heard of this plant, though it sounded lovely, like a lamb’s ears on steroids with big, wide, ribbed, wavy leaves frosted with long silver hairs and panicles of white Menthaceae-style flowers. Would it grow in Atlanta? It would certainly be exclusive!
Salvia argentea in flower, above.
Later that winter my seed packets arrived in the mail and the Salvia argentea packet had five seeds in it. It was quite a production; I sowed them carefully, putting them under fluorescent grow-lights in my light garden, and 4 of them germinated! After potting up and hardening off I shared one precious plant with my closest gardening buddy, and planted the remaining three in my Silver Garden, where they grew and thrived for three or four years. Short-lived like many salvia in Atlanta, they remained a beautiful memory.
Silver Sage top left, above
Fast forward twenty years, and perhaps you can imagine my astonishment when I saw a plant table in my local big box store loaded with millions of Silver Sage! And for $1.98 each! Although spring might be a better time to plant them here, it was amazing to see these formerly exclusive ta-ta plants available en masse, and a delight that everyone could plant these beautiful plants and enjoy them in their gardens.
Garden Debut® speeds up this process, collapsing time as it helps its consortium of growers to get their superior and enhanced new plant hybrids and selections to the gardening public more quickly. The hummingbird on the Garden Debut® logo recently changed from hot pink to chartreuse, and look for black pots with white printing in your local garden centers this fall and next spring.
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