Hi Heather Let me check my seeds .. I know I have a few left. If not I can pick you up a plant at the RBG tomorrow and ship it off to you. I think they are about $3.00 Laura

Christie, I am hearing reports from various hummgardeners around the country that are finding black & blue at their local lowes so keep checking. Our Lowes hasn't gotten them in yet either. They just have some perennials and annual bedding plants...daisies, geraniums, petunias, etc. but I will continue to check b/c I know they had them two years ago but we didn't have one close to us that year. They have since built more stores so I am keeping a close eye out. Not sure if my B&B's survived this winter yet or not...still no sign of life but I can't pull the stump out. I lost a lot of my hummer perennials this winter too. I thought I had even lost my honeysuckle and my agastache rupestris but they are finally coming back. I did post on the other forum that I had a male stop by Sunday evening to rest for the night and refuel in the morning but he has since headed out and now I am waiting again for my flock to arrive. I did buy another coral honeysuckle (Dropmore Scarlet) at Walmart on Monday for $6.83....It is blooming and I just couldn't pass up the price tag. Penny

Thanks Rich - thats very helpful. My instinct told me that they were asking for light, so I shall give it to them. I think you have answered another query I had as well. When I dug them up they had a huge amount of fine roots, so much so that I couldn't see the tubers. Whilst I left a large amount on, I did remove a quantity - and I was concerned whether that was right. I probably lifted them too early as well. Whilst temperatures have been down to freezing at night, some day temperatures have been quite a bit above. They always say with dahlias to let the frost kill off the top growth and then lift them. Presumably that goes for these as well. I assume it informs the tuber that winter has arrived. By lifting too early the tubers haven't got the message yet.

Most salvia do dislike being grown too wet and prefer a better-drained medium than peat plugs, but my guess is that the seedlings in the problem plugs dried out *before* they were rewetted. One drawback with seed-starting in peat plugs is that it's very hard to keep the plugs evenly moist. There's so little medium in each one that they dry out fast and unevenly, so some plugs in a flat might be dangerously dry while others look okay. (The same is true of seed-starting in small cell packs or trays.) For the casual seed-starter, there's a big advantage to starting seeds in a larger common pot or tray and then pricking out the seedlings to individual containers: it's easier to keep one larger receptacle evenly watered than dozens of tiny ones.