This week on Down the Garden Path podcast, landscape designers Matthew Dressing and Joanne Shaw take a look at salvias and speedwells, the colourful and resilient staples of the perennial garden.

Tune in and learn more about how to include salvias and speedwells in your garden.

Perennial Salvias (also known as "sage") are a must-have for the garden border, blooming early summer to autumn! Planted in the spring, these aromatic beauties are great for cutting and beloved by bees and butterflies. They are drought-tolerant, too.

Surprisingly, they are in the mint family and also related to the kitchen herb, garden sage. They grow well across many zones and are available in different shades of purple, pink and white. As an added bonus, they stay upright without splitting in the center.

Matt and Joanne discuss:

• The growing conditions: soil, temperature, zones, lighting and watering
• Blooming: type, when and for how long and the colours
• Use and value to the perennial garden
• Cultivars of note for each plant
• The Color Spires and Profusion series from Proven Winners.

Speedwell (Veronica) is an easy-to-grow perennial with long tall spikes of small petals in different shades of blue, purple, pink, or white. Speedwells are a little shorter than salvias and some varieties are even prostrate, offering more of a ground cover.

Matt and Joanne discuss:

• The growing conditions: it grows best in full sun and best be deadheaded to extend bloom
• The Magic Show series from Proven Winners

Enjoy past perennial Down the Garden Path podcast episodes:

Intro to Perennials

Perennials: Peonies

Perennials: Groundcovers

Perennials: Ornamental Grasses

Perennials: Attracting Beneficial Insects

Shade: Beyond the Hosta

About Your Hosts

Each week on Down The Garden Path podcast, professional landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes.

As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade.

And Matthew Dressing is a horticulturist and landscape designer. He owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, Joanne and Matthew do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and helpful topics. Their goal is to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.