Microphylla Hot Lips has a good survival rate up here in zone 6b/7a and even involucrata will survive some years so I bet your plants will be fine. A hard winter will set back the bloom time of microphylla and greggii. Shoots on old wood will sometimes bloom as early as April or early May here while shoots from the crown can take a month or more longer to set flowers. I suspect that how long the extreme cold lasts is nearly as important as how low the actual temperatures get - within reason. The old stems on my plants seem to slowly die back as the winter progresses. A couple of years ago we had a wonderfully warm March and the sages came through like champs. The Cherry Queen patch was in bloom by the first week in April and the first greggii "Wild Thing" followed about 2 weeks later. By contrast, last year we had several periods of extreme cold, including several lows around 8 degrees in March. Several cultivars suffered high loses and several others survived,including Hot Lips, but failed to thrive, growing to less than half their normal size.

One called Raspberry showed up last year at a local nursery. It was fairly vigorous and bloomed moderately all summer. Another greggii possibly from the same company that arrived with the same lot was named Coral. The latter really impressed me. It has leaves that are very similar to Cherry Queen, deepest green. It put out a steady supply of coral colored flowers that seemed to change with the light conditions. All the examples have died to the ground in our particularly hard winter but I'm hoping. Cuttings from the original plants rooted fairly easily. I would use it at a spring plant sale if it wasn't patented.

Lois: I think Rich can answer better than I can as to timing your Seed planting. My seed are black when they are ripe. If you have the plant at your house take some cuttings. I have found that a better way to generate more salvias. Seed down here(in the south) comes up in the spring but I don't have snow cover to be concerned with either.If you have to do seed I would use something that is a more coarse soil with containers that have good drainage (old nursery pots).Your right it is a good idea to grow seedlings in a environment that you can have some control over. A cold frame (Clear plastic covered) with fans.If you have the space a greenhouse/potting shed works well also. As to color they should be red. Unless you have some different colored S.microphylla in the area then you can end up with hybrids. Art

Art & Ward: The pure yellow (all light) x jamensis are: Cienega de Oro (Yucca-Do accession, with dark calyxes), Moonlight (from M. Nevin Smith at Suncrest, pure light yellow with green calyxes), and La Luna (from James Compton's trip with Yucca-Do, with an orange-brown spot on the top of the hood of the flower, and the darkest flowers). Tony Avent (Plant Delights) has a S. microphylls Lutea which is more robust, and likely to be an x jamensis. La TArda (an x jamensis for collected by Dr. Compton) has light yellow flowers with a light magenta second tone) I saw a deep yellow x jamensis in the Jame area, but could not collect seed or cuttings. James Compton told me of an inaccessible deep yellow bush he saw peering town a cliff in the same area. A straight deep yellow one is what I am looking for. The bicolors include two named Senorita Leah (the original in the USA, and one with a reversed field in England. I'll have to do a side-by-side comparison to verify this distinction, though. These are light peach and a dark pink. Dancing Dolls from Suncrest is more microphylla-like. Sierra San Antonio is one of the original Yucca-Do introductions with light yellow and orange. California Sunset (Cabrillo?) is somewhat similar, with more light peach. San Isidro Moon has a pretty uniform light peach with a pink rime and dark calyxes, and is the third of the original Yucca-So introductions. I'd love to do a side-by-side planting of all of these to get images of the flowers and growth habits. I'm sure there are others with yellow, and am currently ignoring the orange ones like Orange Yucca-Do and Devanteville that do not have yellow zones. These are genetically related, since the orange is a blend of a red or magenta anthocyanin pigment with a yellow xanthophyll pigment. The presence of the latter pigment strongly suggests to me that a third species may be involved, which is why I am interested in a DNA analysis of these sages, and in collecting some pure dark yellow forms.