Blue Anise Sage, Brazilian Sage 'Costa Rica Blue' (Salvia guaranitica)

Blue Anise Sage, Brazilian Sage 'Costa Rica Blue'
Salvia guaranitica

Very good picture! Beautiful colors.

Hi Julie, NIce photo but the colors seem different, especially the calyx and the darker color on the front of the flower - my original plant of Costa Rican Blue came from a well-known Salvia nursery - I think its right but am interested to know differently - see my photo on the site or the one I sent you and let me know - also what is the foliage like?
It may be a case of two different plants being given the same name or just a mix-up

Gary

Gary,

I didn't get any pic from you and yours isn't on the plant files yet. So I can't compare. But I do know that the colors on my plant this year are different....more brilliant....than what I had on the same plant last year. Perhaps different light conditions, colder season, I dunno.... In any case, in the summer the colors were more ... muted, I guess. Compare the above pic taken 1 month ago, to this pic taken in June...same plant, same digital camera, same settings. The earlier flowers had definitely lavender colored calyxes. But the ones from the pic taken a month ago have pink calyxes. I took a pic of some unopened calyxes about a week ago and they all look somewhere in between the two. Not quite the definite lavender, but not pink either......more lavender than pink though. When the flowers open, I'll take another pic and see what they look like.

-Julie

cacti_lover, thank you very much! :-)

Hi again,

yes it is a lovely plant, just not what I thought S. guarantica Costa Rican Blue looked like... sorry I did include a photo in email, and yes my photos havent been approved and posted yet.. anyway it should have black calyxs and a dark violet blue flower, on a fairly upright brittle stemmed bush to around 5 feet or 1.6 metres.
I,ll try to stick in a picture though i thought i saw a photo on your page?
Its a loverly plant anyway, wish i could get it here LOL

Gary

Gary, you know what.....you're absolutely right. My flu brain completely got the better of me. ACK! I'll have to remove these photos. DOH! These are of my S. semiatrata. How embarrassing!. This is a pic of my Costa Rica Blue:

Salvia Lover, your S. semiatrata is just beautiful. Love the colours. Your S. guaranitica 'Costa Rica Blue' is very impressive also. Great photos.

This message was edited Jan 25, 2005 3:23 PM

Broots, thank you :-). I still feel like an idiot getting these mixed up. Hopefully I'll be feeling like myself again soon.....until this flu is over though, I think I'd better hold off on adding photos though ROTFL

-Julie

both of them are gorgeous! i didn't know salvias were this beautiful.

Handhelpers, thank you very much :-). Here's a Salvia native to Israel. http://www.botanic.co.il/A/catalog.asp?qcat=SALIND I would love to have it in my garden but apaprently it has proven very difficult to cultivate. But if it's eer offered at the garden centers, I'll be the first in line to get it! :-)

-Julie

Julie, iwas beginning to wonder if i was being a pest -yes Salvia semiatrata is so beautiful! its on my must get list.
Hope you get over your flu quickly, its been around over here too, mine lasted only a week so heres hoping its a small world..
i'll look up that Israeli salvia, there's supposed to be one native to Australia too but same deal, impossible to get but maybe i'll check it out and post the details

Gary

Gary, dont' worry about being a pest. I never thought that at all :-).

I sware I thought I was going crazy. Then "PING" the penny dropped and I realized my really stupid mistake. Oh well. LOL.

The flu here seems to take ages to get over. Usually for me I have 2-3 days that are bad and that's it....done. But this thing has been hitting lots of people hard and just when I think "hey, it's gone", I have another day feeling like the wind has been knocked out of me. And all that after getting a flu shot!!!!! I shudder to think how sick we'd all have been if we hadn't gotten the shots! I do think it's nearing it's end though as I have ore good days than bad now.

If you find a pic of that Australian Salvia, send me a pic. I'd love to see it. We've got 5 Salvias native to Israel. Salvia dominica, Salvia fruticosa, Salvia hierosolymitana, Salvia indica and Salvia judaica. Salvia indica is the one I sent a link for above. You can see them all here: http://www.botanic.co.il/A/holiday/IMGMAP/file198.HTML. Not bad for such a tiny country :-)

-Julie