Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’

Description

Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’ is much loved by garden designers everywhere. It is a striking upright-flowering perennial that produces abundant spikes of purple flowers from early summer onwards, and provides a great architectural and colourful presence in gardens and planting schemes, particularly when mass planted. Each flower emerges from a red-purple calyx, and the foliage and flower spikes are borne on dark purple stems – very much the signature of this cultivar. Foliage comes up in spring as a tight cluster of basal growth. It looks especially good planted in drifts but specimen plants can also work, or dotted throughout a border. They are a plant that no one aspiring to put together a cottage garden should be without, but they look equally at home in more modern planting schemes thanks to their architectural structure. They are loved by all kinds of pollinating insects and will often be covered in bees at the height of summer.

These established, garden-ready plants have been grown in peat-free compost at our nursery in Cornwall and are supplied in two-litre containers. They will grow to an ultimate height of around 50cm (20 inches), with a similar spread.