I purchased the same exact thing at Job Lots for a $1.00, figured what the heck throw it under a grow light and see what happens??? I have only been gardening for three years so I am a Newbie. I was searching to see if there was any information on growing indoors with a grow light or if I could plant in the ground, which I believe won’t work because I live in Boston... It’s December with snow on the ground.. If anyone could answer my questions or provide any information on the true name, it would be greatly appreciated. Throw it out or give it a try?

Nice shots of brandegei. Looks like the Torrey Pine Grove at Sta Rosa Is. Love this species. It like the Torrey Pines is limited to this island and to coastal so cal/no baja. The leaves are very unique and if resembled my any other species it would be eremostachya. I have an old specimem that I planted in 1996, I think, and i just measured it across at 22 feet. It's a giant now living under a dead Atlas Cedar. (I need to remove the cedar but the birds still use it and I fear for the integrity of my treasured brandegei.) The folks at Sta Barbara Bot Garden strongly suspect that "Pacific Blue" is a brandegei x munzi hybrid and i would tend to agree. PB has leaves that resemble brandegei but are much smaller as well as the dimensions of the plant, which is fairly compact like munzi. My garden is about 2.5 miles from the coast and I've never offered it supplemental H2O. According to an expert at Rancho Santa Ana Bot Garden, brandegei will bloom almost any time of year given some supplemental water. Here is a link that might be useful: Salvia brandegei

HERE is a link to Iseli Nursery's site. This page tells how some new plants are developed at their nursery, mostly conifers. It is worth noting that Iseli Nursery also has an INTERN PROGRAM. Are there any young posters here that could benefit from such a program??????

Most people have amended garden soil and their yards are a cultivated space where some native species will have a harder time. Cultivars are more likely to be designed for the normal garden. The species I grow are matched to the soil that I have. I have crappy caliche soil or a calcarious rubble with leaf litter on top under the trees. I understand that a native cultivar might be more suited to the amended and irrigated garden that most people have. Maybe the cultivars do not seed out as much as some native species. I am not a purist but my garden is a pretty hard situation. The species of my area are better suited to it. I also live surrounded by large tracts of unweeded land so I am careful of what I introduce. Even they will take the nose dive. So it goes. I grow most of my natives from seed. I might buy one or three plants of an un known to me plant and plant them in three different situations and collect the seed from the survivors. Mostly, I get seeds from friends that collect in areas around me. The nursery near me will by unusual natives from odd growers around me and sell them once the spring rush is over and they have space on their shelves.. It is about time that I visit them and keep an eye out for that unusual native. Last year I got some Silphium albiflora and Mojave milkweed from them. The year before, I got some ascepias texana. Unfortunately I had to keep them alive through our brutal summers and plant them out in the fall. Summers are brutal and impossible to plant when the plants go out on sun blasted screes.