Floriferous, understated, and sturdy, this sums up the qualities of this essential shrub for summer gardens.
The 'Blue Spire' variety is one of the few plants that flowers continuously from June to September. It forms a large bushy clump of 1.20 m in height and produces fine stems adorned with slender spikes laden with lavender-blue flowers, exceptionally generous in number. Its small, dentate, grey-white foliage is highly aromatic, indicating excellent adaptation to dry, even arid summers. Airy and luminous, the Afghan sage fits seamlessly into sunny borders, thriving in well-drained, rather poor soils.
Planted in my garden near Aix-en-Provence, in a border for 7 years, this variety grows effortlessly, without watering, and thrives regardless of conditions. Resistant to wind, cold, and severe drought, indifferent to the presence of lime, it is for its incredible robustness that I selected this variety. It enlivens the garden with its steel-blue plumes alongside gauras, bushy sages, lavenders, and California fuchsias.
This is a plant that requires no maintenance other than a severe pruning with shears at the end of winter: I simply cut it back to 15 cm above the ground. One last piece of advice, overly fertile soil will lead to more vigorous growth but will harm the density of the plant, as the bush will tend to open up. Don’t hesitate to plant it in soil mixed with sand and gravel.
Its strengths:
- Grows in full sun
- Drought-resistant
- Robust against diseases
- Requires very little maintenance
- A plant of great simplicity
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