My father used to say that back in the 1950’s, you could watch just about anything on television as long as it was either wrestling or a western. Westerns have gone the way of all things, but wrestling has made a huge comeback over the last ten years. This makes me feel better, somehow, as I wrestle with stakes and tall plants in the garden.
I have a challenge right now that may or may not lead me to more wrestling with plant stakes. I need some blue, spiky plants to liven up the summer garden. This is the perfect time to order such things for the fall planting season. Because of that, I am also wrestling mentally with the choice between two worthy cultivars. The struggle–Salvia vs. Veronica–sounds like it could be a televised, World Wrestling Entertainment all-girl extravaganza.
In one corner, figuratively speaking, stands salvia, specifically Salvia x sylvestris ‘Mainacht’ or ‘May Night’, chosen as the Perennial Plant Association’s “Plant of the Year” in 1997. Bred in Germany, this hybrid has at least one illustrious parent: Salvia pratensis, a European meadow sage that grows between 1 and 4 feet tall, with aromatic foliage and dramatic violet-blue flower spikes. ‘Mainacht’ comes from a prolific genus and is kin to about 750 salvia species native to many parts of the world. As if that didn’t make for enough relatives, the salvias are members of the Labiatae or mint family, an enormous clan of useful and decorative herbs, with a justifiable reputation for being vigorous, sometimes to the point of invasiveness.
Over the last couple of decades, Germans plant breeders have taken on genera like coreopsis, Sedum and goldenrod, creating hybrids that are more vigorous, floriferous and sometimes, compact than their forbearers. After a lot of crosses, ‘Mainacht’ emerged onto the market, with an even better and richer color than Salvia pratensis, but a slightly more compact growth habit. Reaching between 18 and 24-inches tall, ‘Mainacht’ is generally a middle-of-the-border plant. No matter where you put it, the plant makes a colorful statement in the garden.
‘Mainacht’s only real problem is floppiness. It blooms tall and straight in May, but as the season progresses, it tends to flop over, even with deadheading of spent flowerheads. This is fine in a cottage-type garden where flopping is par for the course, but if you intended the plant to be a strong vertical accent, its value diminishes as its stems curve towards the ground. This can be counteracted by judicious staking, of course, or growing the salvia amidst other plants upon whom it can lean for support. You can also cut it back to the basal leaves after the first flush of bloom and it will rise again later in the summer in all its cerulean glory.
Or you can grow Veronica spicata, especially ‘Sunny Border Blue’, the cultivar that was the Perennial Plant Association’s Plant of the Year in 1993. Despite its resemblance to ‘Mainacht’, it is a member of the Scrophulariaceae family, with relatives that include snapdragons and verbascum. The veronica is roughly the same height as Salvia ‘Mainacht’ and has similar spikes of blue-purple flowers. The advantage of ‘Sunny Border Blue’ and some of its other Veronica spicata kin, is that it tends to stay more upright through the season. As with other plants, you should remove spent flowers after the first flush of bloom to encourage rebloom. Both veronicas and salvias like sunny situations and can take a bit of drought. Salvia probably has a slight edge in drought-tolerance and reblooming capacity. Its aromatic leaves also make it more varmint-resistant than veronica. Veronica, on the other hand, generally makes a better cut flower.
So which should you choose? It depends on what kind of garden you have, where you locate your blue spiky flowers, whether you have a varmint problem and how much you like staking. My suggestion, which I am going to apply to my own plant purchasing, is to try both and see which works better for you. It may well be that both plants look great in your garden and will perform equally well given the right situations. If you insert an unobtrusive bamboo or other stake next to your salvia when you install it, the plant may lean on it very naturally as it grows and never need tying. If you do have to tie it up, you won’t have to search out an appropriate support at a time when you have a million other garden chores to do.
I would call the Salvia/Veronica smack-down a draw. If you want to purchase either cultivar, or both, try Bluestone Perennials, 7211 Middle Ridge Road, Madison, OH 44057; (800) 852-5243; www.bluestoneperennials.com. Free catalog.

In fashion everything old eventually becomes new again. This is why women have been wearing platform shoes on and off for centuries. Fashions and fads come and go in the world of horticulture too, and with the rise of electronic communications, the fashion cycle has speeded up. Right now, vegetable gardening is hot and heirloom varieties are hotter than hot. I have to grow hot plants to remain a cool horticulturist, so last year I grew heirloom Brandywine tomatoes. All three of them were delicious.
The low yield was not entirely due to the choice of variety. Last year was a terrible year for tomatoes in general. Many plants fell victim to blossom-end rot, an insidious disease that kills off tomatoes. The plants that didn’t die of disease had lower, less tasty yields due to the absence of sun and abundance of rain at critical times in the growth cycle. Many people found that their long-awaited garden fruits were watery-tasting. Most ate them anyway, because even a watery summer tomato is better than winter tomatoes, which taste as if they were extruded by some far-off tomato machine rather than grown in either earth or water. My three garden-grown Brandywines were not watery and tasted great, but I decided to try another variety this year.
It was serendipitous when a plant company offered me three ‘Black Krim’ tomato plants. A check of the tomato literature indicated that ‘Black Krim’ is a well-regarded variety among amateur growers. Reviewers praised its flavor and the size of the fruits. I potted up the little plants and looked forward to picking the ripe tomatoes in numbers that would put last year’s single-digit harvest to shame.
Like all heirlooms, ‘Black Krim’ comes with a story. Most sources identify them as being “native” to the southern Ukraine, now an independent country, but for much of the twentieth century, a part of the Soviet Union. Some sources also describe the plants as hailing from the Isle of Krim in the Black Sea. Allegedly soldiers first tasted them during the Crimean War and carried the seeds to other parts of Russia after the war ended. The former Soviet Union is apparently a black tomato bastion, with many varieties cultivated in different geographic areas. A glance through heirloom tomato catalogs yields varieties with names like ‘Black From Tula’, ‘Black Sea Man’ and ‘Purple Russian’.
The only problem with the story is that tomatoes are New World fruits, native to South America. They got to Europe in the eighteenth century and were more widely appreciated there than in the United States, where they were long thought to be poisonous. I suspect that the Ukrainians, like the Italians, loved the fruits and began growing them for themselves, hence the development of the black tomatoes.
How did ‘Black Krim’ and its Russian relatives find their way back to the New World? The seeds may have arrived at any time since this country’s founding, perhaps in the pockets of early Russian immigrants who brought a taste of home with them on their trans-Atlantic journey. However, they may also have arrived after the end of Communist rule in Russia in 1991, when the floodgates of immigration opened wide. The opening of those floodgates coincided neatly with the rise of the heirloom vegetable movement, providing fertile ground—literally and figuratively—for the black Russian heirloom tomato. No matter when the plants arrived, they have become horticultural superstars in the last ten years.
‘Black Krim’ is a large tomato that is red with purplish-black “shoulders”. When sliced, the seeds inside are the same dark color. Its intense tomato taste has been characterized as slightly salty, making it especially useful for salads and eating raw.
I dream of great summer tomato sandwiches made with nothing more complicated than homemade wheat bread, fresh tomato slices and mayonnaise. When I read the descriptions of ‘Black Krim’, I could almost taste those sandwiches.
I hope I will get the chance. Right now, ‘Black Krim’ has had three blossoms, but none of them were pollinated. The plant is a healthy 2 feet tall, so growth is not the problem. Today in desperation I moved it to one of the sunniest spots on the whole property— my elevated back porch—in the hopes that the bees will find it and do their essential work. I am betting they will, since about 150 of my daughter’s flowering plants surround the tomato pot.
However, I am taking no chances. I am going to the garden center and swallowing my pride so I will eventually be able to swallow some tomatoes. I will buy some regular, non-heirloom tomato plants before it is too late. I’ll put them right by ‘Black Krim’ and with luck all my tomatoes will yield famously before frost finally blackens the plants in the fall.
My neighbor is already picking tiny, perfect cherry tomatoes from her plants. I peer jealously out my kitchen window, but I know that eventually I will be doing the same thing. After all, the ancestors of my ‘Black Krims survived the Crimean War. Surely they can make it in the suburbs.