Roscoea - Sanguisorba

Roscoea
Splendid, fully herbaceous members of the ginger family, from the Sino-Himalayan region. Grow them in a humus rich acidic soil in part shade, and don't let them dry out when in growth. They spend an extended winter underground. All ours are propagated by division. They may not come into growth until May, so do not panic!
Roscoea auriculata 'Floriade' £4.50
Rich purple flowers in July, with a sharply contrasting white bit in the middle (there's technical for you). In a species which varies a great deal in colour intensity and impact of the flowers, this cultivar stands right out.
Roscoea x beesiana Cream Group £4.50
Strong growing, to 40cm. Lots of big creamy flowers over an extended season. Large. To my mind, the best of the creamy yellows. The naming of these hybrids has, at long last, been sorted out  (see The Plantsman, June '09 - well, you ought to see every issue, really).
Roscoea x beesiana 'Monique' £4.50
White, not cream flowers on a vigorous plant. Variable purple veining on the lip. Long season.
Roscoea cautleoides 'Early Purple' £4
The first to flower here, short and stout, a nice soft purple.
Roscoea cautleoides 'Kew Beauty' AGM £4.50
Particularly fine pale yellow flowers, taller and more slender.
Roscoea humeana 'Rosemoor Plum' £4.50
Stocky, deep plum purple and clumping up well. May flowering.
Roscoea purpurea 'Brown Peacock' £6
As above, with brown-tinted foliage.
Roscoea purpurea 'Purple Streaker' £5
A splendid short stocky plant with big flowers shockingly bicolored purple and white.
Roscoea purpurea 'Red Gurkha' £7.50
The one everyone's been asking for. The flowers really are red, large too, on a short stout plant with dark red pseudostems. It's very late into growth (June - so mark the place and be very patient!) and late flowering too (mid-August -September). If delivered in spring, keep in its pot until well into growth.
Roscoea scillifolia f. scillifolia £4
The mini-roscoea, this year in its soft pink form rather than the black we've listed for some years.
Rudbeckia subtomentosa £4.50
Long narrow yellow rayed daisies, small brown centres. Open plant to 1m.
Rudbeckia triloba £4.50
A much branched plant covered in small yellow, brown centred daisies in late summer to early autumn. Sometimes short lived, keep seed.

Salvia
Salvia aurea 'Kirstenbosch' £5
A bushy little shrub with smooth grey resin scented leaves. The big, shoe-polish brown, clove scented flowers are backed by large, long lasting calyces. Very, very different. This form reaches 1m in South Africa, less here. Best some winter protection. Sun.
Salvia 'Black Knight' £5
A tall (up to 2m) hybrid with impressive dark purple flowers in dark calyces. Not the hardiest, although probably tougher than the rather similar 'Purple Majesty'.
Salvia concolor (not guaranitica!) £5 - very much subject to crop!
A tall plant, 2m+, with long showy spikes of bright blue flowers late in the year. The foliage is superficially patens-like, with distinctive blue petioles. Borderline hardy, best in shade. (A customer keeps it outside in sun, with a mulch, on heavy ground near chilly Grantham, Lincs.)
Salvia confertiflora £4.50
Red-brown hairy inflorescences of crowded orange flowers, to excellent effect, from late summer until the frosts. It's a tenderish plant from Brazil, best planted out for the summer and overwintered in the greenhouse from cuttings taken in summer. 1m.
Salvia corrugata £5
Dark green, tough, very deeply veined leaves, rusty beneath. Luscious dark blue flowers, best and earlier on plants overwintered, but needing protection in most areas. From Ecuador.

Salvia greggii , microphylla and x jamensis (their hybrid) forms -all £4.50
These share the familiar wiry bush form, eventually topping 1m, quite hardy (certainly up to bad winters in the Cotswolds - that makes Sunderland look subtropical,  you Northern cynics) given sun and perfect drainage. Tidy them up in spring, once you know what's what. A few cuttings as an insurance are always wise.
Salvia greggii 'Desert Blaze' £4.50
Cream-edged leaves and red flowers.
Salvia greggii 'Stormy Pink' £4.50
Dusky pink flowers from dark calyces.
Salvia microphylla 'Newby Hall' £4.50
Scarlet flowers, combining brilliantly with the pale green leaves, and has a good hardiness record.
Salvia microphylla 'San Carlos Festival' £4.50
From the USA and a warm purplish pink, hard to describe, but very pleasing.
Salvia x jamensis 'Hot Lips' £4.50
White with red tips to the lower petal, but temperature sensitive, sometimes veering off into all white or all red for a few weeks.
Salvia x jamensis 'Raspberry Royale' £4.50
Raspberry red.
Salvia x jamensis 'La Luna' £4.50
Cream.
Salvia x jamensis 'Sierra San Antonio' £4.50
Floriferous; large rich cream lower lip, pink tube and red upper lip and throat - the colour scheme is sliced strawberries with clotted cream. Very pretty indeed.

Salvia involucrata 'Hadspen' £4.50
Proves hardy in a sheltered position in southern English gardens. Makes a big clump of stems to 1m or more, topped in autumn by spikes of deep red-pink flowers, larger and darker than in 'Bethellii', with a tuft of pink bracts at the tip.
Salvia 'Mulberry Wine' £4.50
An involucrata hybrid, and much better. It flowers earlier, and while they lack the weird bract, the flowers are a warmer, redder colour.
Salvia nemorosa 'Carradonna' £4
Superlative form of the classic smaller herbaceous species. Good purple flowers on very dark stems. 60cm.

Salvia pratensis forms
A tough, hardy, floriferous, entirely herbaceous species; all these forms are by division:
Salvia pratensis 'Lapis Lazuli' £4
Clear pink.
Salvia pratensis 'Indigo' AGM £5
Dark violet blue.
Salvia pratensis 'Albiflora' £4
White, very rarely seen.

Salvia 'Silas Dyson'  £4.50
A twiggy, fairly hardy maroon flowered hybrid from the excellent Dyson's Nursery in Kent. Looks quite like a microphylla or jamensis.
Salvia 'Silke's Dream' £5
First-rate recent hybrid (darcyi x microphylla) with long spikes of orange-red flowers, summer to autumn. Reasonably hardy given sun and good drainage.
Salvia 'Waverly' £4.50
Recent leucantha hybrid with bigger pale flowers, but less of the wooly purpleness.

Sanguisorba
Stout perennials for the border, all with smart pinnate leaves and bottle-brush flower heads late in the summer. Generally best in full sun and a moist, fertile soil. See Julian's comprehensive article in The Plantsman for June 07 (brag, brag). I've given up following the Plant Finder on some of these cos I think I know better. So there.
Sanguisorba albiflora £5
A shorter plant, of the obtusa persuasion, at 60cm or so. White flowers in chunky bottle brushes.
Sanguisorba canadensis £5
Tall and stately, approaching 2m in flower with long slender white inflorescences on red stems.
Sanguisorba aff. hakusanensis £5
A solid, compact one with fat pink inflorescences. 1m.
Sanguisorba magnifica £6
Michael Wickenden's unique collection from the Russian Far East, a distinct regional variant of the obtusa complex. 50cm, with grey green leaves and drooping, soft pink bottle brushes. Found on limestone cliffs (never a good sign) but has proved itself easy in the company of Acanthus spp. on the edge of a really sunny bank, where our heavy wet soil dries out in summer. Rather splendid.
Sanguisorba menziesii £5
Very distinctive blue-green foliage with reddish petioles. Maroon, drooping inflorescences. 60cm or so.
Sanguisorba obtusa white flowered £4
A white flowered form of this stout, splendidly glaucous leaved species.
Not typical albiflora.
Sanguisorba officinalis early form £5
June flowering, about 1.6m tall with ovoid maroon inflorescences and well textured pinnate leaves. Passed around in the UK as stipulata which, bluntly, it is not. I rate it highly. Thanks to Paul 'Abbey' Bygrave.
Sanguisorba officinalis 'Tanna' £4.50
A short (30cm), densely running, front of border plant with round leaflets and deep red globular flower heads.
Sanguisorba 'Pink Tanna' £4.50
Taller, around 60cm, wiry and with the same running habit. Clear pink, upright, slender flower spikes in early summer. A hybrid from Coen Jansen, and one of our favourites.
Sanguisorba tenuifolia var. parviflora £5
Very like the previous plant, but the leaflets are even narrower and held more or less horizontal even when the plane of the leaf is inclined steeply upwards. This all sounds rather technical but the effect is very beautiful.
Sanguisorba tenuifolia var. purpurea £5
A nice plant, but to optimists the name implies really dark purple flowers. They are purple, but at the red-pink end of that difficult colour. 1m-ish. Late flowering with us.