For the Love of Salvias

A cheeky little bird perches on the windowsill and sings loudly to gain our attention.

A puffed-out chest and plenty of confidence indicates this is a well-versed routine. Meg Bentley whistles back before he moves off to a nearby branch to continue preening. “That’s my Golden Whistler”, says Meg. “He’ll be back.”

Whilst the purpose of my visit to Meg Bentley’s home in Gruyere, Victoria, is to talk to her about her passion for all things Lamiaceae, I quickly learn that her two passions are strongly interconnected.

A life-long interest in birds kick-started her fascination for salvias and their relatives. A thirst for knowledge and understanding propelled Meg into an elite group of plantspeople where scientific observation, research and active trials provides insights and learnings to the broader botanical community.

While Meg has over 400 different salvias in her garden, she does not call herself a collector. “A collector is someone who says: ‘I need one of those’, acquires it and plants it. I study each and every one to understand its habits, its uses and its connection to others,” says Meg.

From humble beginnings

Meg started her garden with just four salvias, gifts from friends and family, and she reels them off as if they were the names of her children: Salvia officinalis (Common Sage), S. microphylla (Graham’s Sage), S. leucantha (Mexican Sage) and S. elegans (Pineapple Sage). But it is when she speaks of how much the birds loved these plants, that the twinkle in her eye grows.

Meg noticed the interaction of local birds with her new plants and started a notebook of her observations, and the rest is history. She started to write to nurseries and plantspeople to see what other types of salvia they may have, and her passion, and garden, grew from there.

Her salvias are now registered with Plant Trust (Garden Plant Conservation Association of Australia), which is part of a global movement to conserve the world’s biodiversity, and she regularly contributes both plants and her expertise to the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria (RBGV), something she sees as a great honour.

Meg glows as she remembers a plant collection trip she undertook with the RBGV to China. Delighting in the methodical and precise approach taken to the acquisition of plants and seed, she cherishes her involvement with such a thrilling expedition. She has subsequently set up her own Chinese salvia garden and shares her experiences with salvia growers in Chenshan Botanic Garden in Shanghai; a reciprocal relationship Meg is very honoured to be involved with.

A garden designed for birds and wildlife

Meg admits that hard pruning is not really part of her mandate. “I deadhead each plant two to three times to extend flowering, only cutting back some plants when really necessary as many provide habitat for birds and other wildlife.” In highly manicured or ‘show gardens’, Meg admits that plants will need cutting back more readily to maintain a neat compact shape, but in her garden, it’s all about the joy of nature and gardening for her pleasure.

From the four corners

Positioned on a dramatically sloping site with hills on three sides, Meg has divided her plantings into their climatic preferences, with the tough South African and Aussie native plants at the top, followed by those from the Mediterranean, California, Mexico, Europe and then finally the South American plants, which are positioned in the shaded moist gully at the base of the garden. This helps her to provide the ideal growing environment for each, without too much nurturing or pampering.

Wandering the meandering garden path as  we traverse the hillside, Meg points out many garden favourites, from Salvia dorisiana (Fruit-scented Sage) which Meg uses to make a stunning cake and syrup, to Salvia ‘Timboon’, which has been used to great effect as a spectacular flowering hedge and Salvia miltiorrhiza (Red Sage) with its medicinal roots. Each has a story and a purpose. The garden tour covers the plethora of scents too, from the camphorous Salvia leucophylla, to the sweetly scented Salvia fruticosa.

At the end of the tour, I walked away with an armload of cutting material, a new favourite plant to add to my own garden and a profound sense of gratitude for Meg’s methodical and well-detailed observations, which are critical to our collective and global understanding of this enormous group of important plants.

Meg’s observations have been published in A Manual for Salvia Growers, available through the Victorian Salvia Study Group at salvias.org.au.