They germinate on average between 10-14 days, although I've had some take a little longer. The seeds need light to germinate and have to be sown on the soil surface....how deeply did you sow the seeds? I push the seeds into the pre-dampened soil mixture, spray water them down, then cover with a clear plastic sheet. They've always germinated this way for me. Mine are placed under the lights before germination. A couple of other things....are you keeping the soil (especially the top of the soil) evenly moist? If you let it dry out, then you lose the time for germination. If you have your seed cells under lights and on top of a heating mat, that might be too much heat and you're cooking the seeds. Salvia HHA, HA 10-14 days to germinate Light 68-80 soil temp Well drained soil Sow on surface

If the leaves come out in pairs, it could be a Salvia. If the leaves come out one to a node, it definitely isn't. The paired leaves should be symmetrical, but can be out of balance for the first few pairs. It's hard to tell without a closeup of the nodes on the stem.

Something is eating the flower of all of my salvia's, I think it is caused by the southern pink moth which lays it's eggs in my salvia, the pupa eat just the flowers, I must have a lot of them because every one of my salvia has no flowers left, I have B&B, LIR, among others, anyone know what to do? I don't want to hurt the hummers.

Here is the scoop on Salvia vanhouttei. I got the burgundy (brownish-red) flowered plant from Longwood Gardens who in turn purchased it from a nursery in South Africa on a buying trip. I then disseminated the plant to as many nurseries, collectors, and botanical grdens that were interested over several years. The plant in the images posted looks like this form. Betsy Clebsch had Dr. Ian Hedge, emeritus of the Royal Botanical Garden of Edinburgh and the world's foremost expert on Salvias check out the provenance of Salvia vanhouttei and determined that it was probably the result of early breeding experiments on Salvia splendens by Dutch or Belgian nurserymen. The sport was named after van Houtte, a Belgian who did much collecting in Brazil. The original burgundy form often throws orange flowered seedlings that look a lot like the ancestral splendens. These were distributed by several persons, including Frances Parker of Beaufort, SC. In my hands, many of these were weak growers. One of the individuals who bought the burgundy vanhouttei was Barb Smith of Pendleton, SC (near Clemson University). She came up with the form Paul (dark purple), named after her son. Some of the Paul clone generated the other forms, including a lavender, a plum, a light orange (peach), and other orange to red forms. Pine Knot Nursery of southern Virginia (Clarksville) near Henderson, NC also had a plant of Paul that threw similar colored forms, which I have. Properly, all of these plants should be listed as Salvia splendens, although there probably are genes from other sages thet contribute the different leaf shapes, growth habits, and flower colors. Any generation after F2 is going to develop forms that vary from one parent to the other. Naming these is a problem, since many of the discoverers of the chance seedlings have not given them varietal names.