In a change to the advertised programme, our speaker for April 17th will be Vicki Weston of Big Sky Plants, talking to us about Salvias. The talk by Sue Applegate with wine tasting didn’t seem practical via Zoom and will be rescheduled for 2022.

Saturday 17th April – 11.00am

“Salvias” by Vicki Weston of Westons Salvias, Ceredigion in West Wales.

Seven years ago, Vicki moved to Ceredigion in West Wales, along with her beloved collection of 6,000 plants. Her interest in salvias has snowballed and she now has about 75 species and cultivars, which she sells by mail order from her website.

Some of the cultivars she recommends, such as the deep purple ‘Amistad’, are new to cultivation but already well known. ‘Someone found ‘Amistad’ at a plant fair in Argentina and it’s now one of the most widely seen salvias in the world,’ she says. ‘Hot Lips’ is also popular, with small, aromatic leaves and delicate, bi-coloured crimson-and-white blooms from June until the first frosts.

The tender species flower the latest and some can even be in bloom at Christmas if grown in pots. Vicki recommends varieties such as S. fulgens, the Mexican scarlet sage or the striking rust-red S. confertiflora for Christmas colour. S. involucrata ‘Mulberry Jam’, with its showy deep pink flowers (or indeed any of the New World salvias), can also be container-grown to maximise autumn flowering time.