Hi Neil, I have enough (or too many) seeds for this year already, but if you don't get any reply for some exchange and still need some Yvonne's Salvia, I can send you some seeds with a SASE. I collected them last year (2009) so they are good for this year. In face, I germinated some this year, and the germination was great.

Erika, yes you can pinch them. I pinch almost all the annuals and give many of the perennials a haircut in early summer to make them shorter and bushier. Works well, but delays the blooms a little bit. I grow Salvia 'Lady in red' and 'Coral nymph', also Yvonnes every year, but boy do the slugs love these plants in my garden. I'm going to have to be more diligent about apply the Sluggo around these plants this year.

Ladies, I am so sorry that your experience with Yvonne's Salvia has been so unpleasant. This summer, I planned a salvia garden and received seeds of eleven different types of salvia, including Yvonne's, from a very nice gentleman in Ontario. I had only ten seeds of Yvonne's, which I think is a variety of Salvia splendens, and had 100% germiation. Although the plants remained small for a long time, they are now at least 4 feet tall and still in full bloom. They just 'shot up' in August and though the first few blooms were rather puny on the central stalk, they later sent out side shoots from several nodes down the central stalk. All the blooms are now at least 10 inches long, and they are attracting the humming birds, which was my intention. They are growing in a small section of lawn I took over, but they are a worthwhile addition to the garden, providing much needed colour. Perhaps they are just late bloomers this far north. Not all of the salvias were successful, but there are about 4 which had blooms worth seeing, and I hope to collect seeds from them. If I can spare some, I will contact you when my seed collection is done. Northerner.

I missed the spring planting, but I just bought a 4-pack of Lady in Red salvias to try out. I was going to transplant a few of them into the garden, but I'm not so sure now. I moved one into a small pot(the only plant with active bloom spikes). Of course, after growing in a tiny little container in a greenhouse for a few months, it is a somewhat skinny root-bound plant. I loosened up the roots before filling in the pot with a good commercial soil. The problem I'm getting is the plant is struggling when it gets even a little of the hot summer sun(this was the case before transplant as well). I've been watering it regularly and the soil has remained moist. This morning the leaves and blooms were getting wilty after only one hour of direct sun. When I moved it to the shade and gave it a bit more water it quickly perked up. The last few hours I've put the flower in a mostly shaded area under a tree that just gets a few peeks of sun. I just went out to check and several blooms that looked healthy this morning had fallen out. Just touching or breathing on the blooms caused most of the others to fall out... although the leaves were fine. I certainly can't transplant the other three flowers into the sunny garden if they are just going to wilt and die. I'm going to add some miracle grow to the pot and transplant the other three flowers to a large pot. A couple questions: Should I expect my salvias to better tolerate the hot sun once the roots are able to grow out in the new pots? They are never going to be as healthy as they'd be if I started them with properly spaced seeds, but, considering they are supposed to be full to partial sun flowers, I'd like to be able to get them some sun. Also, are the blooms supposed to be so fragile? How long are individual blooms supposed to last before they fall out? Thanks.