I have had some off season bloom this year too.
The weather,site etc.. things are different in
every climate.
Art

In the Santa Rosa Mtns. of so.Calif. they were blooming in June. See my earlier thread for photos. I think the thread was called "Salvia pachyphylla in California." I never got back to the San Bernardino Mtns. to see the plants that I had been tracking there, but I was told by an experienced botanist that they were flowering there when he visited in Aug '07.

I loved your earlier photos. This plant was an insane choice for Southern New Jersey. It is fun to see it finally bloom in its second year and even if it is just a single stalk.

Thank you for the kind comments, wardda. I went back and looked at my photos, and I'm embarrassed to say that my message above (Sep 19) is wrong: the S. pachyphylla in the Santa Rosa Mtns. were in flower in **July**. I said June. When I visited the San Bernardino Mtns. plants in June, they were not yet in flower, though they had developing buds. Also, the cuttings that I took at that time didn't survive. The main point I was trying to make is that in the mountains of so.Calif., S. pachyphylla flowers during summer.