'Phyllis Fancy', while tender, has returned reliably for me for three years now near the south side of the house in my Pittsboro garden. She's in part-shade with maybe 1.5 hours of direct midday sun. She's putting on a show now. Mine gets about 3-4 ft tall, but I've seen them go to 6 ft in large pots in better light.

I also grow Indigo Spires which regularly makes a giant bush.

Both are easy from cuttings.

You didn't mention it, but S. guarantica and hybrids of it do exceptionally well here. The flowers are gorgeous blue, but they are bar-none the biggest hummingbird magnets in my garden.

Mark

Mark, I do have S. guarantica "Black and Blue' and 'Argentine Skies'. Do you have any others S. g.'s? The number one honey bee magnet in my garden is S. uliginosa (Bog Sage / 'Sky Blue'). It spreads rampantly and sprawls over midway through the summer, but its blue flowers make it worth it. 'Indigo Spires' also sprawls over, so I plan to move it to the back of the garden and use a tomato cage on it next year - I have a 'Mystic Spires' for the front. At the moment the S. koyame is covered with pretty yellow flowers and a S. splendens 'Dancing Flame' is glowing against an east facing brick wall. This plant is supposed to be full sun, but like most var. plants, it seems to do better when protected from the afternoon sun.

Ralph, S. patens 'Guanajuato' has wintered over for me for several years. It's not a real heavy bloomer for me, but it more than makes up for that by having some of the largest individual flowers in the genus. They really look quite amazing. It's a bit of a sprawler and makes underground tubers for wintering over like 'Black and Blue'. S. involucrata 'Bethelli' has been hardy in my garden for the past ~6 years. It's just come into bloom in the past 1-2 weeks and is looking good with Eupatorium rugosum and Salvia koyame. I had S. darcyi briefly but lost it. I think it got planted during one of those very hot, droughty summers and just couldn't get established. 'Tequila' is on my wish list big time. I saw it in bloom in San Francisco and it was spectacular. It's relatively tender and a winter bloomer though, so you would probably need a greenhouse to see it bloom around here. That's one of the reasons I'm building one -- to be able to bloom these large winter blooming salvias. I've also got some of the x jamensis hybrids, 'Pat Vlasto' being one of my favorites there. Just out of curiosity, who was the author of the article?

Ralph, if you really want some photos to drool over, check this out:

Here is a link that might be useful: Dufresne's travelogue of Salvia Summit at Cabrillo

Hey Ralph, I have to thank you again for the Salvia leucantha. It is just simply beautiful! What an amazing bloom! It's pretty borderline as far as hardiness so I'm taking cuttings of it now. Have to have more of that one for next year!

Karen, Thanks for those pics, gorgeous!

I just bought more salvias at PDN last weekend. They work great in my full sun for deer/rabbit resistance. The hummingbirds are happy about it, too! Although I wish the hummers would move on...it's rather chilly today and two are here.

Cameron

New ones:

Purple Majesty
Diane
Texas Wedding
Dark Dancer

I already had:

Black & Blue
red greggii labeled 'Navajo Red' but not sure if it is
deep pink greggii labeled 'Autumn Sage' from BB
La Luna
Caradonna
Marcus
Dark Dancer

Here is a link that might be useful: more on salvias in my garden

---Debra, If you like Mexican sage you should love the Salvia leucantha x ? hybrid 'Phyllis Fancy'. Its flowers look similar but are blue-gray. Hopefully, I will be able to root some cuttings for the spring '09 swap.
---Karen, I went back to Barnes and Noble this morning intending to find out who wrote the article about Salvias in BBC Gardens Illustrated. Since last week they have replaced the August issue with the one for September. In this new issue is an article raving about s. 'Indigo spires'.
---Cameron, how soon can we expect cuttings from your new Salvias? LOL. Seriously, if you are not sure of your S. 'Navajo Red', I believe that one was recently added to the Xeric Garden at the J C Raulston Arboretum. I can check and see exactly which bed it is in if you are interested in comparing it with yours. A number of new Salvias have been added there recently.

Ralph, I'll have to take a cutting of my red over to JCRA. I didn't realize they had just added more salvias. We were last there in early July.

PDN says that 'Purple Majesty' is winter hardy here...have you tried that one?

I'm happy to share cuttngs/seeds from my garden. There are plenty of low branches on the red salvia that can be pruned off for rooting. I just can't share anything dug from the soil due to the fire ant zone. :-(

Cameron

Here is a link that might be useful: photos of the red greggii

Cameron, thank you for that link to Rich's web site. I now have it bookmarked. Are you coming to the Raleigh area plant swap tomorrow? If so, we could trade cuttings then. Or, we could meet one day at the arboretum - I can even make a list of the various Salvias we have there and where they are located, if anyone is interested. Is your restriction concerning fire ants because you do not have them or because you do have them and do not want to spread them. We have fire ants in one section of our neighborhood and at the arboretum, but not on our street (yet, I know its inevitable).

Ralph, sorry that I can't make it to the swap tomorrow. My son (an archaeologist) has only been home from Crete for less than 2 weeks and he's heading out again on Sunday for a 3-month project. We're spending time together tomorrow.

There are fire ants and I don't want to spread them by passing along the soil.

Karen,

The author of the article was none other than yours truly, Robin Middleton. If you like Salvias, see www.robinssalvias.com

We should have known. Who better in the UK to write about Salvias than Robin? Your website is awesome Robin!

I thought it might have been you. I'm familiar with your website -- you sent me your seed list a week ago and I'm working on my order now.

I never got around to actually 'planting' my Hot Lips. You know..where you go find the garden gloves and the shovel and trowel, get distracted weeding somewhere else, decide that the vitex is going to cause too much shade on the Hot Lips so that needs pruning..

So there it sits in its quart pot bought 2 or 3 years ago. The plant is probably 4' tall and 3' wide in a bed that doesn't get watered and only gets beastly hot afternoon sun.

Doesn't pay to baby Hot Lips who blooms probably 8 months out of the year and doesn't lose its leaves.

Which other salvia can I similarly abuse for such magnificent results?

greggii 'Dark Dancer' is magnificent, too. It's a major player in my favorite garden combination for fall (and summer, too).

I just recently posted some photos and a list of companions on my blog.

Cameron

Here is a link that might be useful: salvia greggii combo

Dottie, all I have to say about Hot Lips, is if you DIDN'T get it planted, and it's still alive in the pot, plant it NOW... it's EVEN BETTER to plant in the fall... Unless you're fine leaving it in that pot, lol.

That's one perennial I'll NEVER REGRET planting.

By the way, MUCH to my surprise, Alan Armitage HIMSELF (when he was giving our local Master Gardener group a tour in Augusta May of '07 and I mentioned I had Hot Lips and hadn't pruned it yet for the year), told me that it was good I hadn't because it should be pruned in MID-JULY!

Most plants will be KILLED if pruned in the middle of the summer's heat, but Hot Lips is supposed to be pruned in Mid-July! I cut mine back to about 18" then, even though it cuts off many of the blooms, and it looks kind of bad for a couple weeks, then it comes back better than ever.

Something I'd have NEVER KNOWN had I not met one of the REAL Master Gardeners, himself, lol.

Still alive in the pot? Hon, this thing is 4'x3' fully rooted through the pot's weep holes into the ground.
I'll try to remember your advice about pruning it back next July.
Same thing with a couple of gorgeous beauty berries..in the pot but fully rooted into the ground. The part that would have spread is up in the pot so it's very well behaved.
Too bad the robins ganged up on it this week. They love eating the beautyberries.

So who here is growing Salvia divinorum???

I've never tried to grow S. divinorum because it's a winter bloomer and you need a greenhouse to bring it into flower. Both the flowers and foliage are quite beautiful, and I had always thought I would grow it after I built my greenhouse. Unfortunately the price of even a small plant has been driven up by the interest in its psychoactive properties. Last I checked the price was more than I'm willing to pay, given there are so many other salvia species to grow.

Karen, I noticed that BB lists S. divinorum though I find it hard to believe that they actually have it in stock. Its cultural requirements are so demanding that the only people likely to grow it are those whose motives are not for the appearance of its flowers.

Ralph, BB has typically carried it, but they told me last time I was there that they had to mark it way up to discourage non-gardeners. (They've even had plants stolen.) I was bummed to see the price change, as I always figured I would buy one when I had the right place to grow it. My greenhouse is going up this month but the price may be high enough now to discourage us gardeners, too.

The foliage is really striking and the photos of the flowers are amazing (photo link below). They grow it in the Duke Botany greenhouse, but I missed seeing it last time it bloomed. I don't think it's any harder to grow than any of the other winter blooming, frost tender Mexican salvias, but there are a lot of people with minimal gardening experience trying to grow it on their windowsills.

Here is a link that might be useful: divinorum in bloom

We still have it in stock. We had to convince John the owner not to throw them all out recently after some young boys were overheard talking about chipping money in to buy one. I think we have them priced at 23.50. But we convinced him to just cut them all back and take them out of stock. I brought a large one home just in case he changed his mind. When we first marked them up I had a discussion with him about selling it to people who we were sure were collectors wanting to grow the plant not smoke it. His answer was "by all means use you judgment". Anyway he left it to our discretion to charge our regular pot price which is $3.50 for a four inch pot and $5.50 for a six inch pot. It was never his intention to make an outrageous amount of money from them. If any of you guys want to try growing it just ask for me when you come to BB's and I'll get yah hooked up ha. Adele

Adele, thanks for the status report on this Salvia. I do not yet have the necessary temperature control required to grow it, but I hope to enclose a section in my otherwise mostly unheated greenhouse so that I can overwinter some of the cold sensitive coleus and special plants like S. divinorum. Karen, one of the pictures in your link reminds me of the Salvia hybrid 'Phyllis Fancy' which has Mexican sage parentage and is still blooming in my greenhouse. Only the S. divinorum flower surface looks almost like it has frost crystals on it - a very lovely effect. Am I correct in recalling that it does not make seed?

I actually asked that question mostly in jest, because I didn't think ANYONE WAS growing it, since it got such a bad reputation (I know the IDIOTIC Tenessee State Legislature outlawed the entire Salvia GENUS with their kneejerk reaction to the illicit use of S. divinorum a couple years back!)

Frankly, I'd never even seen a picture of it before, but after seeing that picture of it in bloom, I'm blown away and really wish I had a greenhouse so I could grow one or two... I love my perennials, such as Hot Lips and Maraschino and Black and Blue, but that looked truly remarkable, as well...

I don't guess it would do OK in a west-facing window in a dining room, huh?
Jeff

I made the mistake of giving one of my blog posts this title:

Excitement Over Salvia

As you can imagine, I got a lot of traffic from searches! I'm sure the readers were disappointed to see my greggii and other salvias in my story! :-)

Ralph, I've also read that it doesn't set much fertile seed. I've read a variety of hypotheses as to why it doesn't produce viable seed, but nobody seems to know for sure. It seems to be an ancient cultigen -- I'm not sure anyone's found it in a truly wild population. Some think it might be a hybrid, but as far as I know the terpenoid of 'interest' hasn't been described in any other salvia species.

Adele, I'm planning on a trip to BB in the early spring when the greenhouse is ready, so I may e-mail you before I come.

Jeff, not sure it would do well as a house plant. In Mexico it grows in cloud forest along stream banks, or in sunny areas of tropical evergreen forest, so it will want warmth, light, humidity and moist, well drained soil. Not easy things to reproduce on a west windowsill. And if flowering is night-length sensitive like many other winter blooming salvias, it might not flower if exposed to indoor lights in the evening.

Cameron, it's hard finding any horticultural or botanical info on divinorum in a google search. It all comes up biochemical!