First of all, Libby, your garden is amazing!!! I wish mine looked half that good! (Ps. what is that fluffy light blue plant to the right of your Amythest Salvia? Some sort of phlox?) Well, I dont have that many salvias. I wish I could grow the ones that arn't hardy here. Salvia nemorosa 'Cardonna'. I dont like low mounding floppy salvias. This one is gorgeous, and very upright. Love its dark stems. I like how it looks with the Gold Coast Juniper. Salvia 'Pink Delight'. Its very pretty! Love its delicate spires and leaves. I had to move it from this spot because it was a bit too shady. It looks a little bad after the move, but I think it will pull through. It set seeds well too. I also have the biannully flowering Salvia argentia, which has wonderfully large fuzzy silver leaves. Love it! CMK

Our local "Home Depot" has Hot Lips. I bought mine in very early spring, sometime in March, and it's still blooming today! The only thing, it has not set one seed pod and I've probably had 1000 blooms. I would advise buying one also, I'm not sure if it is propagated by seed. It was in a gallon pot, very nice size plant and only cost $5.96. It is about 4 times bigger now, so it's a good investment. I, too am going to try some cuttings. Good luck on your search and if you do find seeds, please post that you did so I'll know that they do set seeds. May God bless you with his loving Grace, Mona

Robin, I also get variable blooming with my short-day salvias. Besides time of blooming, I frequently get reduced flower size, meaning the blooms are very useless for hand pollination as well as taking pictures. UI suspect this is because I do not have a temperature regulated greenhouse with an electrically operated set of louvers, fan, and furnace. The light transmission of my glazing is probably not optimal. Finally, I pull black plastic over the greenhouse at night to cut down on radiant heat loss. When it is not used, there is a street ligh near the greenhouse that I know will interfere with sensitive plants like S. divinorum and prevent them from blooming. I no longer have divinorum, BTW! I'll post an image or two of what some wimpy flowers look like later..

One of the features of his database includes mapping the intersections of political boundaries (national, state, provincial, and county) with the relief boundaries of USGS topographic maps. That information is part of the database also, and the technique had to be developed from scratch. In this edition, the information is used to determine the highest and lowest points of elevation. John has already laid the foundation for the third edition by including the collection site data for the different species. He has had his hands full with all the other features. After improving them to remove bugs, integrating them more tightly, and adjusting them to adapt to the expectations of the beta testers, he has about reached the point to issue the second edition. After this has been out for a while, he will add the plant collection site GPS data and improve and add to the features for a third edition. I'm sure the Canadian users will like that, since there seem to be no equivalents to counties there. I think that he wants the multiple features to evolve in a coequal and compatible way, to optimize the value of the different editions and to stimulate the proper development of the older features and explore the needs for new ones. Think of the earlier editions of the various office (word processor, spreadsheet, presentation) software. I believe MS Word and WordPerfect are going for their 14th editions. John is trying to do this over three editions. Since the same features of his database will work on animals, he is into developing a parallel database for vertebrates. Having worked out the methods for the plants with the second edition, this will go faster.