Propagating salvias with the Sage Head

No-one goes into horticulture expecting to earn a fortune. With the exception of a handful of high end garden designers, most gardeners, designers, botanists work in the industry for the love of it. Unless of course they happen to breed and licence a plant cultivar so successful it can be seen growing in every other garden, featuring in gardening magazines and mentioned in countless TV gardening shows. A plant for example like Salvia Amistad. Its vivid purple blooms on 1.2 metre high stems work just as well in cottage garden style planting as in exotic schemes and in the last few years it has proved a hugely popular garden stalwart.

At this stage of the story I’m imagining the man behind the Salvia Amistad phenomenon, Rolando Uria Professor of agronomy at the University of Buenos Aires, with a string of polo ponies and a luxury ranch in the Argentinian pampas, living happily ever after on the proceeds from worldwide sales of Amistad. The truth is probably far less glamorous. And the story behind Salvia Amistad is heartwarming. In 2005 Rolando spotted the plant at a plant show and began to propagate it. He was impressed that the purple flowers emerging from a darker, almost black calyx bloomed nonstop from spring to autumn. He shared his cuttings with friends at home and abroad giving rise to its name Salvia Amistad, or friendship sage. He went. on to licence the plant for commercial cultivation and in 2016 it was awarded the RHS Award of Garden Merit.

A fortnight ago I met one of Professor Uria’s friends, Oli Broom, head gardener at Southill Park in Bedfordshire, better known on Instagram as @the_sage_head. I was attending a salvia propagation workshop organised by WGFA, the Working for Gardeners Association. To say Oli is interested in salvias is an understatement. He himself holds plant breeders’ rights (PBRs) for 15 cultivars which are sold in 50 countries. His personal collection of 600 salvias is spread between his own garden, his mum’s garden and his allotment. 150 of them are in pots. And of course they feature heavily in the borders at Southill Park.

Starting with a general overview of salvias, we learnt that they grow naturally on most continents. The shrubby small-leaved salvias are the most resilient to drought, especially those from California and South Africa with the latter in particular able to tolerate winter wet and some winter cold. Some are more tender than others such as those from the Baja California peninsula in northwestern Mexico.

Oli led us on a tour of the gardens to the rear of the house concentrating in particular on the deep herbaceous borders which run the length of the Palladian style house. Salvias predominate in these borders, with one or two exceptions. Backed by the wisteria clothed orangery, the purple and blue themed border contains a host of treasures. Here the names of the various Salvia cultivars came thick and fast: Amistad, Super Trooper, Black Night. Oli pointed out a species Salvia macrophylla with its blue flowers and violet undersides to the leaves, the latter indicating its origins as an understorey plant in the forests of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. Plants with purple undersides have adapted to catch light absorbed through the leaf and bounce it back to maximise light capture.

A historic building featuring a blend of architectural styles, with a prominent yellow facade and detailed stonework, set in a lush green landscape under a clear blue sky.

Lush green garden filled with a variety of plants, including vibrant purple flowers, surrounded by dense foliage.

A man in a green shirt points at a vibrant garden filled with various plants and purple flowers, with a building visible in the background.

The small pale mauve and white flowers of Salvia leucantha had emerged only a few days earlier, shortly before the Autumn equinox. Oli explained this was an example of photoperiodism where flowering is influenced by day length. Some species of plants delay flowering until the day length is equal to or shorter than the night. In this case the plant is adapted to the average 12 hours of daylight in its home territory of Mexico. It came as no surprise when I checked later, that Salvia Phyllis Fancy which had just begun flowering at home, is a hybrid derived from this species.

We were shown the difference between the similarly sounding S. Animo and S. Amena. Animo is a blue form of S. Amistad with deep velvety blue flowers on tall stems. S. Amena, which is also known as S. Blue Butterflies has bright cobalt blue flowers on slightly shorter stems. The flowers of S. Cool blue are pale mauve and show up well at dusk.

Close-up of vibrant purple flowers in a garden, with a large building featuring columns in the background.

More botanic facts emerged as the tour progressed: that members of this plant family (the mints: Lamiaceae) have square stems and that many species in their native environment are pollinated by hummingbirds.

The colours warmed as we walked along the border towards the middle of the rear elevation of the house. Named after his horse, Oli showed us the bright pink flowers of S. Jemima’s Gem which contrasted well with the deep purple flowers of nearby S. Nachtvlinder. It was interesting to see a Mediterranean salvia in this section: S. amplexicaulis with its purple spires on which I spotted a small blue butterfly. Other vivid pink flowered examples in this section were S. involucrata Hiley’s Form, a cultivar of the roseleaf sage from Mexico and S. Pink Pong. I was interested in the latter having propagated cuttings from a client’s garden a couple of years ago. I loved Oli’s story of the plant having originally been called ‘ping pong’ only for it to have been misspelt in the application for a PBR. Because its leaves are intensely scented, I think the pink pong moniker suits it admirably. I spotted another salvia that I grow at home: Pink Mulberry. I noticed this morning that it has started flowering again after a hiatus in September.

A view of a historic building surrounded by vibrant green foliage and pink flowers under a clear blue sky.

Although salvias predominate, there are a few other notable plants in this section. Two tall members of the mallow family stood out: Sphaeralcea with its open pale orange flowers and a scarlet flowered Anisodontea capensis, the cape mallow. We were intrigued by a Dahlia/Cosmos hybrid: Mexican Star with deep brownish red open flowers attractive to pollinators. The wealth of flowers in the border is balanced by some foliage plants including a paper mulberry with deeply lobed leaves: Broussonetia papyrifera.

The south facing border benefits from an irrigation system, hence its lushness after the exceptionally dry summer. The plants in these borders usually finish flowering around the first or second week of December, when Oli and his small team trim them back a little to prevent wind rock with a proper prune in spring. He has found that deer and rabbits avoid salvias, perhaps finding the scented leaves unpalatable.

Turning from the salvia border to explore the rest of the garden, we walked through a formal rose garden edged in box. The box is hanging on grimly but is showing signs of damage despite being sprayed five times a year. Oli would like to replace it eventually with a more resilient alternative. Several majestic Cedars of Lebanon and a well maintained ha-ha show Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown’s involvement in the layout of the garden and park in the C18. The house and garden are surrounded by an estate of five tenanted farms. Native orchids thrive in less formal areas at a distance from the house. Southill Park is built on the Bedfordshire Greensand Ridge, the well-drained sandy soil being ideal for growing salvias. Oli showed us an open site where he would like to create a sunny scree area for about 300-400 Salvia species.

A close-up of purple flowering plants surrounded by green foliage and soil.

Classical statues near the ha-ha mark the entrance to a walk lined with rhododendrons, leading to an atmospheric sunken garden. This is a shady area with ferns, hostas, Solomon’s seal and toad lilies. We were all intrigued by the large scalloped leaves of a scrambling form of Salvia from Brazil, Salvia procurrens, which trailed down the stone walls of the garden bearing blue and white flowers. Further stone walls line a shady walk which is planted with blue Scilla and in spring resembles a river. The dry shade at the top of the wall sheltered S. forskaehli from Bulgaria and Turkey. The flowers had faded but Oli encouraged us to take a few seed heads. Our route back to the house passed alongside an extensive water garden where candelabra primula flower in early summer.

It was time to take cuttings from plants in the salvia border. Oli demonstrated taking non-flowering stems below a leaf node or removing the flower if necessary. He makes a diagonal cut at the base to create a larger surface area. He is in favour of sacrificing part of the mother plant for a decent cutting: the better the cutting the more successful the new plant. Ideally he takes 5 or 6 cuttings per plant. To avoid confusion later on, he labels as he goes along by loosely tying the cuttings together with garden string which he passes through the hole at the base of a plastic label before placing the cuttings into a container such as a travel mug a quarter filled with water.

We filled our travel mugs with cuttings and placed them in the glasshouse located within the kitchen garden at the far end of the house from the orangery. After a brief break for lunch we set to work to prepare the cuttings for planting. Oli starts off the cuttings in either prepared plugs or 9cm pots filled with a free draining potting compost. The medium he uses is a mix of well-riddled commercial compost, 25% sand and perlite or vermiculite. After trimming off the lower leaves and halving the surface area of the larger leafed specimens we were taught to dip the base of each cutting into Clonex, a rooting hormone gel, before placed them at the edge of the pot: up to 5 cuttings per pot. Those planted into the plugs we stood up in the flowerpots for support, about three per pot. Oli demonstrated his state of the art hydroponic propagator which enables him to take dozens of cuttings without using compost until the potting on stage after rooting. He sells many of the salvias he propagates at plant fairs around the country. Our more modest method of mimicking the warm moist conditions needed for the cuttings to strike was to place each pot into a clear plastic bag into which we breathed before loosely knotting them.

Before we headed off with our precious cuttings, Oli showed us some of the treasures in his collection: including a tiny Salvia from Namibia and some that are used as bases by perfumiers. Only two species of Salvia have scented flowers: it is usually the leaves that can be very strongly scented. I grow one called Blue Note which I just have to brush against to release its powerful fruity fragrance.

A greenhouse filled with a variety of potted plants, including small seedlings and flowering plants, arranged on tables with natural light streaming through the glass roof.

A small green plant with leafy stems and visible roots emerging from a soil plug.

12 days on from the cuttings session I can report that all the cuttings I took appear to have taken. Those planted into plugs are showing healthy roots emerging from the plugs. In about 10 days’ time I shall pot them up individually and do my utmost to keep them alive over winter. Some should manage in my vertical cold frame but the more tender large-leaved plantlets will spend the winter on the kitchen windowsill. Here is a list of the salvias I chose:

S. bicolor
S. Heatwave Glimmer. This is a creamy white form.
S. Jemima’s Gem
S. Animo
S. Amena, also called Blue Butterflies.
S. Sagitatta

Oli’s enthusiasm for the garden he cares for and the salvias he cherishes is matched by his generosity in sharing it with lucky groups such as ours. He is about to embark upon a PhD to further his knowledge of the plant he is so passionate in growing and developing. I wish him every success with this and all his horticulture projects.

Kew Gardens 4 October 2026

Postscript

Southill House is the home of Mr and Mrs Charles Whitbread. The family’s origins in the brewing trade are evident in the old pub signs hanging in the meeting room where we convened on arrival at Southill.

The Only Way is (South) Essex

I’m an Essex girl. South Essex to be precise. Born in Billericay, brought up in Brentwood. The part of the county that gets overlooked when visitors head north to East Anglia and east to the coast. But which was made famous in the 80s by journalists like Peregrine Worsthorne inventing the notion of Essex man and Essex girl and later notorious by shows like TOWIE. Long after Ian Dury put Billericay on the map but before Gavin met Stacey, a horticultural and ecological revolution was brewing on a hillside a few miles south in Horndon on the Hill. During my school years Horndon was just the ultimate destination of the 265 bus I caught home from school, that is on the afternoons when I hadn’t spent my bus fare on penny chews and walked home! To this Tolkien reading teen it was a place name that wouldn’t have been out of place on a map of Middle Earth. But it was nine miles from our house and I had no reason to go there.

Until last Thursday! When I joined a group from the Garden Media Guild to meet the leader of said revolution, John Little. At Hilldrop, his four acre garden which slopes gently southwards towards the container port lined landscape of the River Thames, a few miles to the south, he has created a wildlife filled space which embodies his philosophy that the more complicated the landscape the greater the biodiversity. And that those complications can be manmade and achieved in a handful of years. Gardeners and landscapers can mimic nature by making considered interventions. The date of the visit couldn’t have been more timely. Several days into the fourth heatwave of the summer and with the thermometer in the car reading 28°C, Hilldrop is the kind of garden that works in our changing climate. Teeming with wildlife and chest high with native wildflowers, it’s the perfect advertisement for John’s message of resilience to drought rather than reliance on an ever diminishing supply of water. In fact, on the day of my visit Thames Water had joined several other water companies in imposing a hosepipe ban.

A vibrant field with wildflowers and tall grasses, featuring a pathway leading through it. In the background, there is a wooden house, power lines, and a few people walking among the flora under a partly cloudy sky.

A close-up view of wildflowers, featuring spiky blue thistle-like plants and clusters of yellow blooms, set in a lush, natural landscape with a soft-focus background of greenery and trees.

Now in his early 60s, John grew up a few miles away and remembers playing in the post industrial sites in this part of Essex. His family owned a chain of shoe shops with branches in Gravesend and Brentwood. He bought Hilltop about 35 years ago. It was part of a ‘plotlands‘ site and comprised four plots and one tiny bungalow. From here and a site in Barkingside he operates the Grass Roof Company, his green roof and landscaping business as well as running workshops to ‘equip the modern gardener with the skills to design sustainable green spaces for a changing world’. His company maintains the grounds of the Clapton Park Estate in east London, and it’s his experience there of listening to the residents and what they want from the open spaces around their homes that has informed his ‘Care not Capital’ campaign. He trains gardeners to go into community gardens and share the skills they have learned to make ‘sustainable green spaces for a changing world’. His lightbulb moment was meeting Zainab, a Kurdish woman who wanted somewhere to grow the vegetables she used in the traditional dishes which she shared with other residents of the estate.

John’s answer to the challenge of gardening on heavy clay 20 years ago was to cover it with a mixture of topsoil and recycled builders’ rubble and direct sow wildflower mixes onto it. At this time of year wild carrot, fennel, teasels and knapweed abound. As do the red admiral, painted lady and gatekeeper butterflies attracted to their flowers. One of our party asked about an unfamiliar white flowered teasel growing alongside the more familiar violet flowered species. John identified it as the European cut leaf teasel. He explained that the so-called native wildflower seed mixes available when he first made the garden sometimes included non-native species. The challenge now is to counteract the encroachment of scrub and trees such as oak which favour the open sunny site.

A patch of wildflowers and green vegetation surrounding a light-colored rock or ground surface.

Close-up of green spiky flower heads surrounded by green foliage and a blurred background.

John works closely with an entomologist, a PhD student, to record the invertebrates at Hilldrop where 1500 species have been found, at a remarkable concentration of 375 species per acre. Realising that on the heavy clay of the garden he was unlikely to attract ground nesting bees, he has introduced several piles of builders’ sand and sure enough the insects have moved in including the bee wolf and spiny digger wasp. More invertebrates means more birds, such as insect eaters like warblers.

Sand is also used in the large containers which stand on the verandah of one of the two houses built on the site. They have been filled with sand topped with one inch of garden compost, the plants germinating from the seeds in the compost. John then weeds out those plants he doesn’t want! And saves a fortune on bought in potting compost.

A collection of potted plants with various flowers and greenery, set on a wooden surface. The pots are clay and appear aged, surrounded by vibrant yellow and green foliage.

A wooden deck leading up to a rustic house, surrounded by lush greenery and potted plants, with colorful cushions on the steps.

As gardeners we already disrupt the ground by planting a tree, creating a pond, planting for pollinators, installing compost bins. At every turn in this garden there are examples of more interventions which change the topography of the garden and make it such a biodiversity hotspot. Using all manner of recycled material: sand, dead wood, metal grids, crushed aggregates. Even shipping containers. This is Open Mosaic Habitat (OMH) translated into a garden setting. It’s no coincidence that over a fifth of the country’s Special Sites of Scientific Interest (SSSI) are in post industrial sites. A short distance from Hilldrop, a former oil refinery in Canvey Wick is now a nature reserve where 2000 invertebrate species have been identified.

A small wooden cabin with a green grass-covered roof, surrounded by trees and wildflowers. The cabin features a welcoming porch with a chair, potted plants, and a sign that reads 'SOLITARY'. — Green roofed studio made from a recycled shipping container

A small green plant with broad leaves emerging from the soil, marked by an orange flag, surrounded by dry grass and vegetation.

A few of the invertebrates found in the garden have very specific host plants. For example, the bryony bee which feeds on white bryony (Bryonia dioica) growing near the house and one particular solitary bee which feeds solely on the small number of red bartsia (Odontites verna) plants in the garden. Anthills in one area have been marked with small flags to protect them during the programme of cutting back the garden over winter. Cutting back is done in sections rather than all at once, so as to minimise disturbance to the invertebrates.

A circular compost bin made of metal wire, filled with plant debris and surrounded by greenery and small yellow flowers.

Several large round compost bins are located throughout the site. Constructed from standard weld mesh clipped together, they are used constantly to deposit dead material from the garden and save having to barrow it to one dedicated compost bin area. But more importantly they create yet more habitat for animals. I imagine that hibernating toads might find them a cosy place to over-winter.

A number of different materials have been used for the paths throughout the garden. As well as crushed granite over recycled aggregate from which the main routes have been fashioned, there are narrower walkways and steps made from metal grating. Here’s another opportunity to increase habitat and attract pollinators, by placing them over sand for bees or planting them with scented thyme.

A metal grid walkway surrounded by overgrown wildflowers and grasses, showing patches of soil and green plants growing through the grid.

A pathway made of metal grating surrounded by tall grasses and wildflowers in a natural setting.

I was intrigued by a large cockle shell mound to one side of the path. John was offered the material by a local Thames Estuary cockle fishery and is experimenting by planting sea kale which has welcomed the salty residue in the shells.

A circular mound covered with a layer of small seashells, surrounded by wildflowers and green plants, set in a natural outdoor environment.

A close-up image of a ground covered in various seashells, with a leafy green plant on the right side and some grassy elements mixed in.

A red cylindrical object attached to a tree trunk, surrounded by lush green foliage under a clear blue sky.

If you don’t have a hollow tree on site to create an environment in which overfly larvae thrive, John’s response is to make one with a plastic pipe attached to the trunk of a dying hornbeam. Dead wood features throughout the garden in various forms. In one place beetle activity has displaced the bark of a dying tree and the beetles are now working into the smooth wood beneath. He reminded us of the importance of topping up logpiles. When I got home I checked on the small pile I introduced three years ago to one side of the garden and found it had rotted down almost to ground level.

At the foot of the hill, to one side of the drive to the house, is a large wildlife pond. Never let it be said that Essex natives don’t have a sense of humour: neatly tucked into the unmistakeable structure of a metal shopping trolley at the water’s edge is a moorhen nest! Like most ponds this summer the water level has dropped considerably. Driving past at the end of the visit I noticed a pair of mallards swimming on the pond.

A discarded shopping cart partially submerged in shallow water near a grassy area with trees and shrubs.

A serene view of a calm water body with a wooden dock in the foreground, surrounded by lush greenery and wildflowers under a clear blue sky.

The last place I expected to see a dry stone wall this summer was in south Essex! I’ve been lucky enough to admire them in very different landscapes over the last three months in the Borders, Northumberland, North Yorkshire and Somerset. Hilldrop’s version uses Essex demolition waste instead of the local stone available in other parts of the country. The spectacular wall cost £40 in materials and £1400 for the expertise of a skilled stone waller! Next year John plans to bring in local bricklayers to learn the drystone walling technique. He also showed us a quicker version where he had filled a gabion with demolition waste. John is also experimenting with using cob as a building material and recently held a workshop on the subject. A cob column topped with an old fire pit stands near the house and it’s hoped that it might eventually provide a habitat for solitary bees.

A stone and brick wall surrounded by wildflowers and grass in a sunny outdoor setting.

A weathered stone wall made of various bricks and stones, partially covered with greenery and wildflowers in an open field.

A garden sculpture featuring a cylindrical concrete base with a round rust-colored metal top, surrounded by greenery and wildflowers.

A cylindrical structure made of soil and rocks, encased in wire mesh, surrounded by wildflowers and greenery in a natural setting.

John’s wife Fiona’s section of the garden is a little more conventional than the wider garden: including a poly tunnel containing very healthy looking tomato plants. But John’s influence is clear with a series of elegantly shaped raised beds fashioned from disused grain silo panels. The plant choice here is wider than the wildflowers growing throughout the wider garden, but all appear to have been chosen for their drought resilience.

A vibrant meadow filled with wildflowers and greenery, featuring various plants and a backdrop of trees and a brick building under a blue sky with fluffy clouds.

Garden beds made of corrugated metal, surrounded by various plants and greenery under a blue sky with clouds.

A close-up view of a garden with various green plants and purple flowers thriving in the sunlight.

Hornets have nested in a hole in the trunk of a willow tree in this part of the garden and could be seen flying in and out. The tree also hosts woodpeckers and starlings.

A close-up of a hornet emerging from a round hole in a tree bark, with wood shavings visible around the entrance.

Beside the drive is a grass roof covered shelter faced with mini gabions filled with a variety of potential habitat materials: long hollow canes, squat log lengths drilled with holes. Resin bees have moved in and demonstrated their intriguing practice of stopping up the nesting holes with plugs of resin harvested from nearby trees.

We need ‘disrupters’ to shake up the received wisdom about many aspects of modern life and John Little is doing just that in the world of horticulture where we cannot sustainably carry on gardening in the same way that our parents and grandparents did, without further damaging an already debased environment.

Kew Gardens. 2 August 2026