Michigan Salvias

Salvia is the cut-flower name for a big family of ornamental sages grown for their tall, upright flower spikes. In the field they read as vertical brushstrokes of deep blue, violet, and rosy pink, saturated colors that most summer gardens struggle to produce and that hold in the vase longer than almost anything else in a mixed bouquet. The spikes give an arrangement its backbone, and the velvety texture is the kind of thing you notice up close.

The cut-flower salvias our member farmers grow, from mealycup sage to annual clary, are warm-season annuals rather than Michigan wildflowers, so we grow them rather than claim them as native. What earns salvia its place in the field is how hard it works for pollinators: the spikes feed bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds right through the warm months, so a row of salvia is usually humming when it hits its stride. The botany, including its pollinator draw, is laid out at Salvia farinacea. In Michigan the first spikes are usually ready by mid-June and keep coming until frost knocks them back in October.

Salvia is a flower that rewards being grown close to home. The spikes bruise and wilt fast after a long truck ride, so most grocery-store bunches look tired before they ever reach a vase. Because our collective’s farmers cut in the cool of the morning and you pick up at the barn the same week, you get salvia with its color and structure fully intact. Reserve a DIY bucket for a wedding or a table full of jars, ask for salvia in a mixed bucket, or let our floral designers build it into an arrangement for you.