Evening Attire has large, vivid violet-blue flowers packed tightly along the spikes, held in dark calyxes for extra depth. It is one of the richest blues you can find in a perennial salvia.
The plant keeps a refined, well-behaved shape about 20 inches tall, with dark green leaves beneath the flowers. It blooms from late spring into early summer and is a favorite of bees and hummingbirds.
What it looks like
Upright flower spikes 6 to 8 inches long tightly packed with large hooded florets, each about half an inch long, in vivid violet-blue, held in dark purple calyxes. Spikes rise evenly over the leaves. Leaves are oval to lance-shaped, 2 to 4 inches long, dark green and crinkled. The plant is a tidy, rounded clump 20 to 22 inches tall and 24 to 26 inches wide. At peak it looks like a dense mound of deep blue spikes over dark green.
Growing it with lavender
Salvia wants the same full sun and lean, well-drained soil as lavender, and its upright spikes echo lavender's form while filling the gap before and after the main lavender bloom.
Care
Plant in full sun in average, well-drained soil; it is drought tolerant once established. Hardy in zones 3-8; shear the plant back by about a third after the first flush fades to encourage fresh growth and another round of flowers.
At a glance
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Botanical name: Salvia
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Flower color: Vivid violet-blue with dark calyxes
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Foliage: Dark green
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Growth habit: Tidy, rounded clump
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Mature size: 20–22 in tall × 24–26 in wide
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USDA hardiness zones: 3–8
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Light: full sun
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Bloom start: Late-May
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Peak bloom: Mid-June
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Bloom pattern: Repeat Blooming
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Deer resistance: Resistant
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Pollinator value: Excellent
Sizes and shipping
Dormant bare-root plant, sold in boxes of 25 per variety (order in multiples of 25). Bare-root plants ship or are picked up March 1–May 31 only. They are soil-free, so they may ship to every state in that window. Dormant plants often show little or no top growth on arrival; plant or heel them in promptly.