About Salvia clevelandii (A.Gray) Greene
Salvia clevelandii (A.Gray) Greene is an evergreen shrub that grows 1 to 1.5 meters (3.3 to 4.9 feet) tall and wide. Its fragrant, ashy green leaves are obovate, rugose, and reach less than 2.5 centimeters (0.98 inches) in length. The flowers grow on 30 centimeter (12 inch) spikes, arranged in numerous whorls of upright amethyst blooms that open between June and July.
This species occurs across parts of Southern California and northwestern Baja California, growing in chaparral and coastal sage scrub habitats. Its distribution covers the coast of San Diego County, the Peninsular Ranges of San Diego and Orange counties, and northwestern Baja California, extending from the U.S.-Mexico border to the northern part of the central desert in the southern Sierra de San Pedro Martir.
Salvia clevelandii is a popular landscape plant in the Southwestern United States, and has been in cultivation since the 1940s. These plants prefer dry summers and good drainage, and can tolerate full sun in cooler climates. As a landscape plant, they have a relatively short lifespan of five to ten years, and are hardy to -7 °C (19 °F).
Cultivated cultivars and hybrids of Salvia clevelandii include: 'Winnifred Gilman', a popular cultivar with intense violet-blue flowers; 'Betsy Clebsch', a shorter cultivar with wide variation in flower color; and 'Allen Chickering', 'Aromas', 'Pozo Blue', 'Santa Cruz Dark', and 'Whirly Blue', which are hybrids with similar appearance. Salvia clevelandii is also one of the parent species of the hybrid Salvia 'Celestial Blue'.
