Re: Plants for **below** a Salvia clevelandii?

At 09:40 PM 1/25/2000 EST, you wrote:
>I was helping a customer today who has this problem: she has a hillside 
>across from some picture windows in her house which is planted with several 
>Salvia clevelandii that she says "show too many bottom branches" for her 
>liking.  She loves the Salvia flowers and doesn't want to take it out, so she 
>was looking for solutions to "hide" or screen those lower branches.  Ok 
>Medit-folks, anyone have some clever suggestions for what to plant in front 
>of these?  She does have a few requirements -- the plants must have showy 
>flowers (can be any color), be fairly low maintenance, must take extreme 
>summer heat (Contra Costa Co., CA) and must not die back or look ugly at any 
>time......whew.  The area is on a drip, so the plants should require a 
>similar water as the Salvia.  I look forward to any input and thank you very 
>much in advance!
>
>C. Carter



How about prostrate rosemary or winter savory?  A low-growing santolina
might work, although the spent flower heads will need trimming.

A consideration would be the build-up of highly flammable dead material over
time.  All of the plants mentioned will burn with intense heat from the
resins and oils in the tissues; some maintenance will still be required.

Salvia chionophylla, snowleaf sage from the Chihuahuan desert, will form
low, dense mats of small, roundish grey leaves, as long as there is
moisture.  The habit, believe it or not, is like a Potentilla.  The flowers
are slate blue.  Similar blue-flowered Salvias (regular subshrubs from
Mexico) would include S. thymoides, S. lycioides (green leaves), and S.
chamaedryoides.

Richard F. Dufresne
313 Spur Road
Greensboro, NC  27406
336-674-3105
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