can you identify this plant please?

[mike84]

This plant is at present growing outside my back door. It is about 1 metre tall and about the same wide. I was wondering whether it could be some sort of herb. many thanks

[Miranda]

It looks very much like Salvia microphylla to me, and you're right it is a herb, of the sage family. It's pretty, isn't it?

It isn't fully hardy, though, so if you want to keep it then either dig it up and put it in a pot in a greenhouse or somewhere protected, or take cuttings now (non-flowering stems root more easily than those with flowers on). If the main plant makes it through the winter, then you'll have extras to plant out from your cuttings.

In winter 2004/5 it survived in my garden, but in winter 2005/6 it didn't. Good thing I'd taken cuttings, or that would have been it.

[Riffler]

Mike,

could be Tangerine Sage, do the leaves smell like that?
www.plants-uk.co.uk/fullcatalouge.htm

check out :

Sage Tangerine

Salvia elegans 'Tangerine Sage'

[mike84]

Dear Mirander and Riffler, thankyou so much for your help, i have checked out both of your suggestions and i think that the flowers are much more likely to be Salvia Elegans. thanks once again

[Miranda]

Yeah, it does look more like S. elegans, Mike - the flowers are narrower. Similar, though ;-)

S. microphylla smells a bit like blackcurrants.