The ornamental sages offer welcome late season colour, including this one which grows outside the Palm House.
The genus Salvia is valued for its culinary and herbal uses, and also for its ornamental value. It is a cosmopolitan genus containing over 1000 species of annuals, herbaceous perennials and shrubs, some of which are hardy in the United Kingdom. For gardeners the diversity of colour and habit provides a range of species and cultivars for use in the garden. S. macrophylla is a native of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru where it grows in mixed vegetation in open, sunny sites. It can exceed 1m in height and bears large, glandular, triangular or spear-shaped leaves, and a slender, blue corolla. This selection is the purple-leafed form, whose underside to the leaves have a purple tint. This is generally considered a tender species in the UK, but given a sheltered position it may overwinter, though the foliage may be cut back in frost.