I now know more about salvia scents than I wanted to. I went around looking for those last green leaves on each and crumbling and sniffing, my neighbors probably think I'm insane. But here's what I found.
The salvias with the strongest most obnoxious scent that you wouldn't want your pets to bring in on their fur (but fortunately if left undisturbed, they don't give off the smell like other flowers do, like the Arizona Sunset does that I won't plant near my chairs... thank you woodland fairies for that nicety!
):
Purple & Bloom
Black & Blue
A few with a very faint scent, if you didn't crush the leaves right next to your nose, you wouldn't notice it, but maybe a dog with it all over their fur might be noticeable:
Bodacious Hummingbird Falls
Coral Nymph
Fairy Queen
Salvias with no scent at all, even crushing up flowers and leaves under my nose gave me nothing at all:
Wendy's Wish
Van Houttei
Texas Red Hummingbird 'Forest Fire'
And an odd one, the Skyscraper series of salvias had a very faint lemony scent to them, it was very nice, nothing at all like the typical sage smell. I kept thinking I was grabbing the wrong leaves and tested it about 5 times to be sure.
I couldn't find any Heather Queen or Summer Jewel to test, I cleaned those planters out last week.
But if you see the few that don't smell for me locally, try a leaf and confirm that my testing wasn't just because of end of season and fizzling out so maybe the scent fizzled out too. The Wendy's Wish especially is a very pretty color and the hummingbirds love it.
