Hi, I know this will probably sound like a stupid question to all you veterans here, but like I said, I'm new and I was just wondering why there's so much discussion about the black and blue variety of salvia. I had never even heard of it before I saw it for sale at a couple nurseries this spring. I didn't buy any because it wasn't any of the traditional h'bird flower colors (red, orange, etc.), but I was a bit intrigued by its unusual appearance though. (I worked in a greenhouse business for about seven years back while I was in my 20's.) I was just curious why there's so much talk about it here...? What are its pros and cons?

Thanks,

Bill McClure
Zone 6A

Well Bill I can only speak from my experience with Black and Blue. It was the first Salvia and the first hummingbird plant that I bought when I started to add plants specifically for hummers. My first hummer hit it within minutes of potting it up in a large pot and putting it on the table in my back yard. This plant has never ceased to attract any hummer in the area if I have one in bloom. I learned that not all good hummer plants have to be red or orange. I am having a very difficult time getting this plant this year and I actually had my husbhand drive to the next town to buy a small one for me. I also have a man who buys plants from me that comes specifically for Black & Blue. This year he drove an hour away to get one since I didn't have any. It is an excellent hummer plant.

Penny
Niagara Falls, NY
USDA zone 6a/6b
Heat zone 4
Sunset zone 39

The first year I had a hummer garden, Black and Blue ran away with the prize. I will always have it around. Salvia gardening can be addictive. There are dozens of varieties that hummers love. The good thing about Black and Blue is that it is becoming widely available in local nurseries. I found it in the annuals section at the garden center. It may not be hardy for you, depending on the severity of winter. It does grow vigorously enough to serve as an annual.Black and Blue can get pretty big, at least 4X4 in my garden, so give it plenty of room.

Priya
Zone 7, Maryland

I bought it and wasn't thrilled with it, but I have to eat my words now because it's a great contrast color in the garden. I have a bunch of hummers that don't appreciate all my hard work, lol. They go straight to the feeders and ignore my plants most of the time. I have to admit this is not the norm as many here will tell you.

Maryjane
W Ga
Zone 8a

Thanks for the info, everyone. I'm glad to hear it can grow in a pot because I have to plant everything in containers. We're way out in the woods and have hordes of ravenous deer that stampede through every single night and devour everything in sight. Our house is also literally located on the side of a mountain (on a 45 degree slope), and the soil around here is the worst I've ever encountered anywhere! Due to some physical handicaps, I'm not able to do as much heavy gardening work as I used to, to try to improve the soil, so I've just been planting everything in pots and window boxes on the deck behind our house instead. Here's what it looked like by the end of last summer:



(That stupid "Rose Petal" feeder went into the plastics recycling bin quite a while back -- no way to ever clean all the mold out of that awful convoluted base!)



As you can see, I've always relied heavily on Salvia coccinea ("Lady in Red" variety), but I'm always open to trying new things. Whenever I go plant shopping with my sister in the spring, she swears I must have been a h'bird in a previous life because I always go zooming around looking for red flowers like I'm gonna stick my nose in them!

Most of the nurseries around here are already shutting down for the summer, but the next time I see some black & blue, I'll probably buy it, just out of curiosity. I keep trying different things to see what works best, even perennials in big pots. This year I'm trying heuchera, monarda, tritoma, delphinium, and lobelia cardinalis. I'll have to try to overwinter all of them in our cool basement though since the penstemon I left out in a pot last year froze during an unexpected subzero arctic blast in January. No great loss though since I wasn't too thrilled with it anyway.

Thanks again for all the advice!

Bill McClure
Zone 6A

Penny - for some reason this year, none of my Black and Blues survived the winter....they have in previous years, not sure what was different this year. However, I happened to walk into Lowes 2 nights ago, and was quite surprised to see they had it! Since I live in western Pa, fairly close to you, you might want to check a Lowes near you - I picked up 3 of them, havent even planted them yet, just had them sitting on the deck, and my hummers are all over them. Just wanted to suggest to check Lowes - good luck! Lor

Edited to allow flower image to appear.

Bill,
The Black and Blue can go in the largest pot you can handle and once it starts to bloom it will keep right on trucking. There is a good post how one member overwintered his successfully in a tub filled with peat moss. As a general rule most salvias are pretty much deer resistant and there are lots of good ones for hummers. Also not all Penstemons work well for hummers but there are a few good ones. While we are talking pots here, you may even want to consider a coral honeysuckle vine. It too can be grown in a container and you probably wouldn't have to bring it in as they are very hardy. We have one member here who lives in a hi rise in PA. I think she is on the 16th or 18th floor and she grows honeysuckle, shrubs and all sorts of perennials and annuals in containers on her balcony. She leaves everything out all year except her most tender plants.

Sunbird,
I did check Lowe's about a week ago but when I go out that way this week I will stop and check again. I do know that some Lowe's around the country have gotten them this year.


Penny
Niagara Falls, NY
USDA zone 6a/6b
Heat zone 4
Sunset zone 39

Hello Bill,

What a lovely set up you have for the hummers!!!!!

Here's a pic of our garden late September last year showing our 10 Black and Blue in the garden at their peak height of 4.5'...just to show you how big they do get...


Susan Louise
from Branford CT/ live in Lincoln NE
Zone 5

Thanks, Susan Louise. Your garden is beautiful too. Whenever I look at all these wonderful h'bird sanctuaries you people have created, I just can't help but be incredibly jealous. You see, I grew up in a big gardening family. My brother ran the greenhouse business that I worked in for so long, and my dad always had a huge vegetable garden every summer. After I grew up and got so interested in h'birds, I also surrounded our "home place" with lots of big, bright, colorful flowerbeds which would literally stop traffic. Most of them were raised beds that I filled with pure compost that would really send stuff growing skyward. (I had some tithonia Mexican Sunflowers one time that grew to about 15 feet tall and were actually visible right outside the second story window!) People would often say we had flowerbeds like you'd see at some big amusement park!

I had to give all that up though when I moved away from home. Then, after our parents died, my sister inherited the place and she had everything razed to the ground while building an addition onto the other family business. The digging and construction phase all occurred during the middle of winter when all my perennials looked conveniently "dead" and no one bothered to ask if I wanted to try to keep anything since I was living in a small apartment at the time with no place to plant anything. She's been replanting everything ever since, according to her tastes, which means a really haphazard collection of "wildflowers" -- i.e. invasive weeds like evening primrose and wild morning glories. She claims they're "just so easy to take care of and don't even need to be watered..." Sheesh!

Anyway, now I live up on the mountain in the middle of the woods and the only place I get enough sun to really grow anything is on the deck, thanks to a big opening in the canopy of trees around our house. There are a couple flowerbeds in front of the house, but they're all in total shade, full of really poor soil and thick, dense tree roots which made it as hard as concrete, and most anything planted there gets devoured by all the deer, so I've given up on even trying to grow anything there.

Yes, Penny, I've been wanting to try growing a red lonicera in a big pot on the deck, but I just haven't had the opportunity yet. I did see them for sale at a couple different nurseries last year, but I didn't really have any place to put one back then. I just put up a couple more big trellises this spring, but when I went back to look for one, they didn't carry them this year of course, so I guess I'll eventually have to mail-order one. I had two of them in the ground at home when I was growing up and the h'birds always loved them so much, but I do remember now that I also had lots of trouble with the flower buds getting covered with aphids and shriveling up before they ever opened, just like so many people have been talking about here recently. That was about 20 years ago for me, so I guess it's just one of that plant's usual caveats.

And yes, I did try planting some leftover Lady in Red salvia in one of the flowerbeds here last year, but they only sat there a couple days before something chomped them off all the way to the ground during the middle of the night. I've heard that salvia is supposed to be deer resistant because of its odor, but nothing seems to stop the ravenous deer-zilla species we have around here! Oh well, there wouldn't have been enough sun for them to grow there in the "concrete" anyway.

By the way, we also have dangerous killer squirrels around here too. A couple years ago when there was such a big bumper crop of acorns (so many raining down in the fall that you practically had to wear a hard-hat to go outside just to keep from getting knocked out), I kept having trouble with my car. First, something built a big nest inside the ventilation system that blew a bunch of dirt into my eyes one foggy morning and nearly sent me careening off the edge of the mountain road. After I had that fixed, the air filters kept getting completely shredded up by something with little sharp teeth and claws...

In the end, I had to pay almost $1,000 for all the damage they did to my car. That's why my eyes always bug out whenever I hear about someone who's actually feeding the squirrels. To me, they're nothing but Ricky the Rat's hillbilly cousin, with a fuzzy tail. I certainly didn't cry last year during the big acorn shortage when they all disappeared for a while...

Oh, the joys of living in the country!


Bill McClure
Zone 6A

Bill--beautiful deck garden you have there. I also recommend you try 'Black and Blue', it does well in a container.

Zone 4 Red Wing MN

Wow Bill! Your container garden puts many of our in-ground gardens to shame! It's beautiful!

I have found black & blue at Wal-Mart, Lowe's and Home Depot. It's one of the first plants offered in the spring locally, although I know it's hard for many on here to find.

Carol

Carol R
Tennessee
USDA Hardiness Zone 7
Heat Zone 7

Bill,

Thanks for sharing...
Sorry to hear of all the damage the squirrels have done to your car and all. I guess anywhere one lives there are the good vs bad points. Here, there are few trees but one can see the sky and thousands of stars at any given time (on a clear night of coarse), but back were I came from in CT, there was trees and ocean. Other trade offs were tornados for hurricanes, good beef for seafood...blah, blah, blah.
Anyway, you certainly do live in a great location. Too bad there can't be a way to keep them from building nests under/in your car!

Susan Louise
from Branford CT/ live in Lincoln NE
Zone 5

One you don't want to be without...











Diana
Upstate SC
Zone 7b

Bill several of us purchased honeysuckles from ebay within the past month. There is a seller from Jasper Arkansas that has severa; dofferemt ones... (John Clayton Mandarin, Alabama Crimson, etchttp://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZdogwooderitternetQQhtZ-1
The plants are small but would be purfect for starting it a large contaienr.

BTW, sorry to hear about the damage to your car. I am one of those whackos that does feed the squirrels during the winter. Even my FH tells me I am just feeding the rats with bushy tales.



Penny
Niagara Falls, NY
USDA zone 6a/6b
Heat zone 4
Sunset zone 39

Bill,

I'm also one of those nutty people that feeds squirrels! I know they are "rats with furry tails" but I'm on a "first-name basis" with ALOT of rats, especially at work!!

One nice coincidence with hummingbird gardening is that squirrels and rabbits don't seem to like to chew on mint-family plants, which include the Salvias and Monardas we plant.

Some baby squirrels my cousins rescued:


Some older squirrels a friend re-habbed - he raises them to a certain age and then they start living outside, more and more loose, and they eventually leave on their own (**actually, correction: I think these are the same squirrels several weeks later after I got them from my cousins and brought them to my friend's house).



I guess we have a system! You country people keep trying to get rid of your squirrels and us city people feed and re-hab them, so they can make their way back to where you live!

Wilmington, Delaware
USDA zone 7a
Heat zone 6
Sunset zone 32

speaking of rats...er..bunnratbits

look who had the nerve! to come right up to the patio where i was sitting and nibble on the germinating bird seed last night...









Diana
Upstate SC
Zone 7b

Thanks for the pictures, Diana. It seems so unusual to see a h'bird feeding from a blue flower! You people are really helping push me way over my budget on flowers this year! Soon as I get off work tomorrow, I'm gonna have to hit Lowe's and Walmart to see if I can find any of that B&B salvia.

As for you squirrel(ly) people... I'm afraid the "Respond with kindness and HB love" button won't let me say what I'm really thinking...! ;-p

Bill McClure
Zone 6A

You're welcome, Bill.
It was the first plant we purchased for the hummers (August 2006) and they LOVED it! - because of reading this forum.
Not to mention it's a fav color of mine.

Diana
Upstate SC
Zone 7b

Bill,

I'm on the list of the squirrel...er a rats with furry tails (too funny Penny!)...feeders...
I don't know how long you've been reading posts on our forum before posting because I posted this pic here back in February, but here's our family of 6...


Diana,

Our "bunnratbits" enjoyed the seeds with the birds in the winter, but seems to sneak into our gardens for it's daily salad a la carte...Parsley and Scarlett Runner Beans. I've chased them more than a few times in my house coat before 8am a few times now...
DH thought it was funny til I reminded him of all the work he spent making that huge trellis. He said he'll be going to the hardware store tomorrow to make a fence on the one side of our yard that still allows access for the little cuties. Next Spring DH will be fencing off the rest of our backyard. I have lined the rest of the fence with paver stones so they don't crawl under it.


Susan Louise
from Branford CT/ live in Lincoln NE
Zone 5

Wow, Bill!...I bet it's a hard life sitting in the hot tub on your beautiful deck and watching the hummers come in at dusk... =) I'm envious!!! Kudos on the fantastic container gardening!

Another plug from me for B&B...and I have a new salvia love for 'Wild Thing' as well.

And yes...I too hate tree rats and venison wearers. I have no qualms with people who love them, and I would never actually harm them myself...well, maybe I'm tempted...but they make me see red almost every day when I go down to check the damage...poor me...! Thus my love for 'Wild Thing'!...two months and not a bite yet!!

Zone 7B
North Carolina Piedmont

I have to Im also one of the black and blue fans . Its at or near the top of hummer favorites here. I find that hummer are definately not just attracted to red/orange , they will ck all colors blue , white, violet, hey Ive even had them check out my tomato blooms before. I would venture to say 8 out of 10 people on here will sing their praises , but the number is most likely higher than that.

Steve
Martinsville, In
Heat zone 6
Sunset zone 35

Oh no, Susan Louise...







Diana
Upstate SC
Zone 7b

Diana,

Yep, your in trouble...break out the salad dressing...
If you don't fence it off, you might as well have a salad with them...

Susan Louise
from Branford CT/ live in Lincoln NE
Zone 5

We grew Salvia guarantica 'Black and Blue' as one of our very first hummingbird plants almost 10 years ago now (after Trumpet Honeysuckle, Jacob Kline Monarda and Savlia coccinea). Of course, we had to get it by mail order since no local nursery carried it (or even knew what it was!) back then. It's a very attractive plant and the hummers used it quite a bit, especially in August and September.

Then, by chance, we ordered the Blue Brazilian Sage from Select Seeds to try something different. We noticed that this plant had the same beautiful, large blue tubular flowers with plentiful nectar and that it grew taller with more flowers. Of course, it doesn't have those attractive black bracts, but our hummers seemed to prefer it over the Salvia guarantica 'Black and Blue.'

This season, we probably have close to 15 Blue Brazilian Sage plants in our yard (many of them successfully overwintered in our basement.) I still buy a few 'Black and Blue' every season because they are so striking (and one overwintered in a pot in our sunroom and is now in the ground), but I find they work much better in a container in our cool climate zone in Madison, Wisconsin.

You mentioned having trouble with deer eating your plants, even the salvias. You might want to pot up all those salvias, including 'Black and Blue' in a light weight potting mix and then they can easily be brought in at night. The advantage of 'Black and Blue' is that they are so easily available, either locally these days or by mail order.

Please let us know how it all works out for you.



Kathi and Michael Rock
Madison, Wisconsin
Zone 4/5

Susan

In reference to your bunny rabbit photo we have bunnie problems here too. I today noticed half of my cardinal climber vines gone so I have to have fencing around what I have left and start new seeds that wont make it now to flower stage before the hummers leave most likely. Could be cutworms but the entire plants seem to be gone, I vote rabbit. So tomorrow its more seed and chicken wire already have stakes.

Steve
Martinsville, In
Heat zone 6
Sunset zone 35

Bill your deck is lovely. By he time your done reading the post here about hummingbird flowers you eyes will roll , and you will be way over budget.

Black and Blues are a favorite flower here. I plant them in pots all the time. You have to try them.

birdlegs
zone 5
S.E. Lower MI.

Bill,

I also have 7 "Black and Blues" in my garden too. Hummers love them, despite the non-red color. I think you're going to have to buy at least one of them now!

Wilmington, Delaware
USDA zone 7a
Heat zone 6
Sunset zone 32

Bill,

I just showed my husband your deck pictures. He think MY/OUR deck is to cluttered with plants! You just convinced him its not. Great job. Now all you need is the arbor ove the hot tub and grow some Trumpet Creeper over the top, than you'll have the hummers feeding while you soak. I found some hybrid creepers that are not supposed to be invasive. Campsis x tagliabuana, Madame Galan and also Campsis Flava. Right now they are in containers creeping up the arbor posts.

Can't wait till they TAKE OVER.

In keeping with the theme of this thread, The large blue container on the right has overwinter B&B. I left it in the pot and stuck it in the garage, its coming back great!


Pam NJ 6B

Okay, okay! You people talked me into it! I stopped at Lowe's this evening after work and they did have the black & blue salvia in stock. In fact, it looked like they had just gotten it in because there were only one or two empty spots where any pots were missing. I've always been very choosy about which plants I buy, so I had to spend quite some time picking and choosing, pulling plants from the center of the display until I found a couple that weren't lying over completely sideways and/or with broken branches.

After hearing you people talk about it, I wish I could have gotten more than just two, but I'm really just about out of space on the deck for this year. I'm planning on putting both of these together in the one big pot I have left with a wire cage around them to help hold them upright since they seem to fall over so easily. I always do that with my lady in red salvia that I put in big pots too. Now I just need to find someplace to position the pot so the blooms will be up above the deck rail and in easy sight for the hummers. I have some old milk crates that I use to elevate things like that, so now I just need to find an open spot that doesn't have a feeder already hanging in the way!

So thanks, everyone, for talking me into spending even more money this year! It better be worth it! ;-p

As for an arbor over the hot tub, Pam, I'm not sure I'm ready to go quite that far yet! I did put up a couple more trellises on the deck rails on two sides of the hot tub, but I've got annual vines climbing halfway up those already (cypress vine and Crimson Rambler morning glories). Like I said, I'm already way over budget for this year so I'll have to wait until next year to try some kind of perennial vines on those trellises instead.

I did plant some orange trumpet vine against a few of the trees in the woods behind our house last year. They are coming back this year, but they're not growing like gangbusters yet and totally taking over like I expected. I dug them up last year as fairly big sprouts on the ones I planted at home where I grew up. That was the one thing I planted that my sister has never been able to get rid of! No matter how much she digs and sprays, they just keep coming and coming! (She even had the three big original plants dug out with a backhoe!) It's even trying to replace all the grass in one section of the yard and there's a big patch of brush where it's nothing but that and wild honeysuckle vines (the yellow and white japonica kind) that are trying to choke each other out!

Thanks for letting me know about the less invasive trumpet vines. I'd be more willing to try something like that on the deck than the regular wild kind. Oh, and tell your husband that there's no such thing as too many h'bird plants on a deck. We had to turn sideways to walk between our hot tub and all the plants last year, but it's worth it when it can bring you so many hummers in so close!

Bill McClure
Zone 6A

I knew we could do it, Bill! Your hummers will love you for it!!!

Great photo, Pam!

Diana
Upstate SC
Zone 7b

My only complaint is that our Lowe's DOES NOT have Black and Blue. I went there today but NADA! I did get another Stampede series greggii though so the trip wasn't a total waste.

Penny
Niagara Falls, NY
USDA zone 6a/6b
Heat zone 4
Sunset zone 39

Bill,

2 B&B in one pot no matter how big a pot is going to be tight. You shouldn't really didn't have to stake the potted B&B's, unless you are in a very windy area.

Penny,

I overwintered my Stampede Lavender from Lowes last season in the basement, and it is growing like gangbusters and blooming too! I'll get a pic tomorrow. They smell so goood!

Pam NJ 6B

Pam
Last year my Cherry Stampede overwintered in the ground but I lost it this winter but you are right they do over winter very well inside.


Penny
Niagara Falls, NY
USDA zone 6a/6b
Heat zone 4
Sunset zone 39

Thanks for the tips, Pam, but I'm afraid you're a little too late! I just came in from potting up my B&B's. As you may have noticed from the pictures of my deck last year, I always prefer to over-plant in containers rather than under-plant. It helps get that "wow" factor by the end of the summer when everything gets fully (over)grown. And besides that, I just can't afford to buy another big pot right now!

And yes, we do get some really terrible wind shears across our deck sometimes, especially with bad storms in the summertime. (We're on a westward facing slope on the side of a mountain.) That's why I always stake everything up really well. I've wasted far too much money on too many plants in the past that wound up getting broken and destroyed by the wind so I always tie everything down in place.

Now I just live in fear of hailstorms... We had a really horrible one last summer and all I could do was just stand inside and watch as all of the huge, lush leaves on my elephant ears got shredded right into lace...

Bill McClure
Zone 6A