Salvia 'Blue Butterfly'
blue butterfly sage
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Salvia ‘Blue Butterfly’ – is a native hybrid sage that we probably have to credit the bees for their work. It’s likely a cross between Salvia ‘Allen Chickering’, (which is a cross between S. clevelandii and S. leucophylla) and Salvia leucophylla or purple sage. In any case the leaves are silvery like purple sage, the fragrance is like purple sage, the whorls are like purple sage (more and bigger with more flowers) and the flowers are blue/purple like cleveland sage.
An excellent one for full sun to part shade – feeding bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies. The name Salvia ‘Blue Butterfly’ was given to us by Janis Hatlestad, Better Earth Garden Design, on one of our Facebook plant naming contests!
Things to do and things not to do:
To do- plant in full sun to part shade. Best to plant in the cooler months fall through winter- deep heavy water 1x while establishing. In first summer in hot inland areas water 2x/week. Keep this up through first year or so. Cut back to below dead flowers to clean them up. For mail order containers more frequent watering – 2x to 4x per week depending on the temps. until things cool down in winter then 1x to 2x per week.
NOT to do– these are pretty easy to grow so the only problems are generally from watering. Don’t sprinkler water 5x/week for 2 minutes. This is not a lawn and you’ll keep the top wet and it will rot. 2x for 2x minutes isn’t any good either- you need to get the roots wet so the water needs to penetrate around 12″ for a new 1-gallon pot and 18″ for a new 5-gallon pot.
