Salvia Pozo Blue flower cluster. Still going strong at 21 years old.
Salvia Pozo Blue out by Rio Bravo in Bakersfield. A overwatered lawn and they were alive? Pozo Blue is an amazing sage.
A Painted Lady Butterfly on Salvia Pozo Blue.
Pozo Blue Sage with a Swallowtail butterfly.
Dogface butterfly checking the Salvia Pozo Blue for a landing spot.
Salvia Pozo Blue with a Fritillary Butterfly sipping in the sun
The night life on Salvia Pozo Blue. A White-lined Sphinx moth.
Salvia Pozo Blue. This sage can look delicious through a lens.
Salvia Pozo Blue with a Costa's Hummingbird.
The last flower of Salvia Pozo Blue with an Anna's Hummingbird
Description
Salvia Pozo Blue is very drought
tolerant
three foot green-gray perennial. A hybrid of Salvia clevelandii and Salvia leucophylla. Its
flowering
period is about 6 weeks with violet-blue flowers. Foliage is very
fragrant like Musk Sage (Salvia
clevelandii).
Survives and looks good on rainfall from 7"-35". Summer watering has
not been a problem here, but may shorten the plants life. Pozo Blue
has
been stable in a heavy clay and beach sand. We planted some in a
sandy
garden in Los Osos where the salt spray burned the foliage off of
most
of the other plants we planted and its lovely and shows no sign of
burn. We have been told it is better looking than Salvia 'Allen Chickering' in
form
and foliage. Flowers are similar.
This is THE NATIVE BUTTERFLY BUSH. Weve seen about thirty species of
butterflies and a lot of hummingbirds working the flowers. If you
have
the room for a butterfly hedge, go for it. Plant the sages about
four
foot apart for almost perfect fill-in. Mix a Few Salvia Brandegii, Salvia Celestial Blue or Salvia
clevelandii Alpine for a longer flowering period, or just blast the
neighborhood with fragrance and color with miles of Pozo Blue. This
sage has also done well in the Anza Borrego Desert area,
Bakersfield,
Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and most years, Portland.
A cold tolerant sage, to 5F degree with little or no damage. This
sage
froze to the ground at 0. I burned off the dead stuff and it started
to
grow back from the crown before we graded it off and put plants on
it.
(We're very gentle and loving to your plants, really!) Of 200 one
gallon plants on hand with the December 1990 frost hit, 3 plants
survived. That block had 13,000 plants in it, the three Pozo Blues
were
the survivors. If you drop below -4 or it stays frozen in the 20's
(F)
for days, it may not recover(or it may, this is one tough plant).
Its
structure does not support snow real well though. So if you get more
than 3-4 inches of wet snow each year, the sage may be a little
flat. Click here for
more about
California Sages.
