With all the heat of the last month, you need to know about a perennial flower that loves the heat and will thrive in dry, sandy soil. The plant is called Russian sage but is not native to Russia; it's from Afghanistan. Until 1995 it was not a plant that most gardeners had it their gardens but the Perennial Plant Association named it the "Perennial of the Year" and today it is found everywhere. Let me tell you about this plant so you too will know the story of this wonderful perennial garden plant and why it was named the perennial of the year.

First of all, Russian sage is not in the Sage family of plants, it's actually in the Mint family--a close relative. The Genus name Perovskia was given to the plant after a Russian general, V.A. Perovsky (1794 to 1857), who was much admired by the Russian people. The plant can be found growing all over Russia today. The sage part of the name came because, like the mint plant, it has a pungent mint-like scent to it.

Let me tell you why you need to have this plant in your garden. The stems of the plant are gray-white to silver in color and they develop at the base of the plant, like wonderful outward-arching branches. The foliage is small, less than an inch long and narrow, needle-like but a unique fuzzy gray-green color. When the foliage stops growing the plant will make wonderful tall spikes of light blue flower spikes. Each flower spike will quickly develop many side shoots of spike flowers that will quickly cover all the foliage of the plant. The flowers come in clusters on these spikes and resemble tiny tubular blossoms that cover the plant, giving them the appearance of lavender blue to pale blue cloud.

The plant itself is woody looking, and also looks like a shrub, because it will grow 3 to 5 feet tall and 2 to 4 feet wide. If you want to control the height of the plant you can pinch the tips of every stem in the spring when the new growth reaches 12 to 15 inches tall. Each of these flower spikes can grow 2 to 3 feet tall on the plant. The flowers are long-lasting on the plant, usually lasting from June to September. If the blooms should end early, cut back the plant by removing all the faded flowers and one third of the foliage of the plant. Fertilize with a granular fertilizer like Flower-Tone or Dr. Earth Flower food with Pro Biotic and the plant will bloom again, lasting until the first hard frost in the fall.

Russian sage will grow best in a soil that is well drained; average to poor soil is best and never clay-like or heavy. This wonderful plant will tolerate a dry soil, sandy soils, acid soil, and open areas with a lot of wind like the seashore, making it the perfect plant to grow in a seaside garden or at a lake front garden where most plants fail. If your soils are heavy, make a raised flower bed or create a mound of soil to grow the plant on, as this will keep the crown of the plant and the roots out of the water especially during the winter months and early in the spring when the ground is wet.

Plant in a garden located in sunshine all day long for the best flowers on the plant. If you have a location that gets real hot during the summer and where watering can be a problem, this is the plant for you. If you plant in a partial shade or shade garden they will not do very well for you and will not flower. This is one plant for which conditioning the soil when planting is of little importance but you must keep the plant well watered the first year until is it well established and able to find its own water. Mulching around the plant is helpful in holding water in the soil during the growing season (along with weed control) but in cold climates like Northern New England mulch also helps to protect the root system.

In the fall, you can leave the plant as-is and enjoy the unique plumage-like winter branching or you can cut back the plant to 12 inches. This is a woody perennial and the new growth will develop on the branches that remain from the previous year's growth. New shoots do not develop from the base of the plant but from the woody branches.

In a cold climate, never cut back the plant right to the ground or it may not develop in the spring. If your climate is cold, be sure to build a mound of mulch 4 to 6 inches deep around the base of the plant to protect the plant just in case snow falls lightly to protect the plant from winter wind and frost heaves. The plant will tolerate temperatures that drop to minus 30 degrees when mulched in the fall.

You can plant Russian sage in containers like whiskey barrels as long as they have good drainage; you can also lift them off the ground with bricks or pot feet to encourage good drainage during wet weather and the winter when they freeze. If you're growing in clay or ceramic type pots, bring the pot into your tool shed or garage for the winter months and do not water until you move back outside in the spring; around March.

Put several plants in your cut flower garden for unique textures and the long flower spikes will be the most talked of among your fresh-picked bouquets on the dinner table. These flower spikes will outlast all of your cut flowers used in the arrangement. Blue is difficult to find in cut flowers and this flower will replace baby's breath or statice in your arrangement.

In a mixed border the Russian sage should be planted in the back of the garden or on the end of the bed, as the plant will get tall--3 to 5 feet. Give it room, as the flowers will develop from the ground up to the top of the plant. In a rock garden they will thrive with all the heat the rocks draw to the garden, and in a stone mulch garden they will outlast most plants in the garden.

I like the plant when planted in mass or in groups to create a splash of color in the planting bed for summer color. Mix with blue mophead type hydrangeas to create different textures in the garden. You can plant just one on the end of a fence to soften the hard surface, and if you live on a street with a rotary or traffic island, it will make the perfect maintenance-free plant; use instead of grass that needs watering and mowing. Create a garden on a slop or steep hill where mowing could be a problem or the soil is not very good.

You will like planting Russian sage in flower beds with daylilies, coreopsis,r udbeckia daisies, Oriental lilies, fall-flowering sedum and, in the late summer with an under planting of flowering cabbage or flowering kale for wonderful contrast. They will also flower at the same time as perennial hibiscus, rose of sharon, butterfly bush and all the new types of hydrangea--P.G. hybrids--for wonderful summer color near your swimming pool or patio. If you're spending a lot of time outdoors this summer, the Russian sage is the plant that will give you more color than any other perennial plant in your garden today.

Fertilize in the spring with a granular organic fertilizer, once a year and then forget it. Russian sage has no insect or disease problems to worry about and butterflies love this plant. Enjoy!

Turtlehead - A Great Summer Perennial

We all enjoy the wildflowers growing on the side of the road, like the wild lupine in the spring time, the summer-flowering white daisies and Queen Ann's lace and in the fall the wild miniature flowering asters and goldenrod. Today, I want to tell you about one wildflower that you want in your garden because it is trouble free, it will grow almost anywhere and it will flower from late August into October. This very hardy perennial is called the turtlehead and it thrives from Manitoba to Newfoundland in Canada and south to Georgia and Arkansas.

The turtlehead gets its name from the flowers it makes, because they resemble the head of a turtle. The plant makes the flowers on the top of the stems and they develop as a spike flower much like the snapdragon flower. Each individual flower will grow from 1 to 1.5 inches long; it is tubular with a puffed end like the head of a turtle that will split open resembling its lips and mouth. The flowers open from the bottom of the spike and work their way up the spike slowly lasting for 6 to 8 weeks on the plant.

The flower color will range from white to pink and even shades of red. The plant will grow 2 to 3 feet tall as a single stem that develop from the base of the plant making it a wonderful cut flower for your home. The plant spreads with underground roots creating a thick clump of foliage and flowers in the late summer. Purchase the plants in pots from spring to fall and give them room to grow, as they will spread to 3 to 4 feet wide in just 3 to 4 years.

The foliage is deep green and the leaf is oval in shape, 2 to 3 inches long with tiny teeth along its edge. The foliage is also shiny and very clean looking compared to most perennials in our garden. The plant will grow very thick once established in your garden and this foliage is rarely troubled with insect and disease problems. The stems are very stiff and strong growing and seldom fall over with stormy weather; no maintenance needed to hold plants up like so many other tall growing perennials.

If you want to propagate the plant it is best to divide the plant in the spring time. Use a garden trowel or spade and split the plant into small clumps when the plant grows to 3 to 6 inches tall during May. These clumps will still flower for you in the late summer if you care for them during the growing season.

Turtleheads will grow in full sun to full shade garden, a bit taller in the shade. They love a rich soil and the better you prepare the soil the larger the plant will grow and produce more flowers for you. Condition the soil with compost, animal manure or peat moss and be sure to work it deep into the ground to stimulate a strong root system. If your soil is on the sandy side, be sure to add Soil Moist Granules as these plants love moisture, clay type soils and will even thrive in wet soils. Soil acidity is not a concern for this plant either.

This is the perfect plant for a garden in the shade and where water is a problem, as it grows wild near streams and river banks. If you have land where skunk cabbage and ferns are the only plants that grow, this is your plant to change the look of that area, but it will also grow in the average garden. It will soak up a lot of water in the ground, helping to change the character of your yard when planted as a wild flower. The foliage and flowers will add a lot of character to a wild fern growing area on your property.

Turtleheads love water, so remember that if the summer weather gets to be hot and dry, you will have to water them regularly--especially the first year you plant them in your garden--to encourage flower production in the fall. Fertilize in the spring only to help it get started properly and the plant will take care of itself the rest of the year without much care. Once the plants are established they are almost self-sufficient.

Plant turtlehead perennials this summer in your perennial garden for late summer to fall color. The plant will look great when planted along the edge of tall trees or along a wooded area. If you live near the ocean, a lake or beside a river edge, this is a wonderful plant because it will tolerate rough weather where wind is a problem. Turtlehead will tolerate winter temperatures to minus 30 degrees below zero without any type of winter protection. You can also plant turtlehead near drainage ditches, along the side of the road or in front of cattails as a border planting for summer color in places where it is difficult to grow flowers.

In the fall collect the seed pods from the plant once they turn brown and break them open so you can scatter the seeds in a meadow to add to the wildflowers already growing there now. Seedlings will flower the second year they are planted. The pink flowering types of turtleheads will flower the longest time in your garden or in the wild.

You can also plant the turtlehead as a ground cover to prevent soil erosion or on a steep slope where mowing could become a problem. This is just a nice plant for your garden with many uses, so get out this weekend and plant some. Enjoy.

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