Debi Holland reveals her top tips for growing healthy salvias that return year after year. Watch her video guide on how to spring prune to ensure your plants return stronger, bushier, and more vibrant than ever for summer.
How to grow and prune salvias
Read the transcript
Salvia ‘Hot Lips’, also known as Salvia microphylla ‘Hot Lips’, is an easy-to-grow, bushy shrub with red and white flowers from summer to autumn.
Give it sun and shelter. This woody sage comes from Mexico. Plant it in a sheltered, sunny spot and keep it moist at first. Once established, it’s drought-tolerant, which makes it useful in dry summers. It can reach about a metre high and wide, so give it room in the border. It also grows well in a pot, which you can move into a greenhouse for protection from heavy frost in cold areas.
Enjoy the scent and changing flowers. Salvia microphylla is commonly called blackcurrant sage. Brush or rub the foliage and it releases a blackcurrant scent. The little red-and-white flowers look like kisses. Temperature and day length can affect their colour, so you may see entirely red or white flowers as well as the familiar two-tone ones.
Prune in mid to late spring. ‘Hot Lips’ can get leggy and woody. Once the risk of heavy frost has passed, give it a light trim or take off about a third to a half of its size. Pruning encourages new flowering shoots lower down. Once you’ve removed the top growth, tidy up the cuts just above healthy buds and take out any dead stems. This helps keep the shrub compact.
Deadhead through summer. Remove spent flowers to tidy the shrub and encourage more blooms. Chop up woody prunings for the compost heap, or leave them in a quiet corner of the garden to create a wildlife habitat.
‘Hot Lips’ produces plenty of flowers with little intervention and is loved by pollinators. There are other varieties to try if you’d like to add different colours to the garden.
