See my post to the Black & Blue blooming. I got little seed and bloom this year myself.

I am outside Austin and I have not tried to collect from my Augusta Duelberg but If you want more plants I can get you runners, come spring I will need to contain the new growth and you are welcomed to it. I am having trouble with collecting seed from my S. regla. They were late blooming, sporadic and now they drop before they turn color. I have a freeze cloth under it to catch them.

The seed on regla is huge for a sage. If it is not turning from green to yellow to tan and gets frozen, it is done for.

You are right to pick it as it ripens, since the shiny deep brown to black seeds fall out almost as soon as they stop darkening.

wantonamara:
My regla produces seed better during it's spring flowering
Cycle than fall.The form I have is what is sold around town.
It is the form Called "Jame". If You purchased "Blue Chiquita" from Barton Springs they sell two different forms. You want to post a pic to make sure its accurately Identified. My Augusta duelberg has not produced seed this year because of the drought.I am also trying to get a
group together here in Austin interested in Salvias.Let
me know if you would be interested. Art

My regla does not bloom in the spring. I am not sure if it is Jamie or another. It was only identified as S regla. I am a bit colder than you guys down the hill and it takes a while for it to wake up in the spring. We missed the freeze two weeks ago, I don't know why, High up maybe.. The fall blush is a fireball followed by dropping seeds normally. Normally it is flowering in September and long over it's seeding process by now. I also have it where it gets no irregation water. My regla has a rough area to grow in. It is about 7' tall and the one that got more sun this year almost died . which surprised me heartely. It has never needed water before. My theory is that last year when we got close to 60"of rain out here on Hamilton pool Rd., caused the deep roots to rot and come this year, with 10", It had no roots to draw its water and it suffered a great deal of stress. Whole sections just died but it seems to be leveling out but much deminished. Could it be that they're just getting old. How long lived is the Regla? What about this S.Sessei? It sounds very interesting. Where would I find it?
Sorry, I need to get a handle on the Photo situation. As of yet, I do not have photobucket, so words will have to do. I got my S. Chiquita from Garden's maybe 5 years ago.I will keep my eyes out for the variations. Mine is the darker blue variety, I think. Very blue with a tiny touch of slight violet to the blue. LONG stamens of blue flowers, proliffic seeder normally.
I have been trying to grow a S. Reptan's west TX form. I have it growing in a granite sand compost soil brought in from Geo growers, But it is not happy. I here that it is supposed to be fairly easy to grow but I have not found this to be true. Does any one out there have any experience with this plant. I saw it at the Natural Gardener several years back. They didn't know the name. As far as they were concerned, it just appeared. I identified it informally by cruising the web. It is not that far from some rosemary. Could the rosemary be sending out some bad Juju. Can you tell that I my garden knowledge is not based on theory but on just doing.
So far I have listed one problem after another. I must sound like a mess. The land came with wild S. roemeriana growing under my oaks and madrones, and S englmanii, s. texana and a dark blue scutelaria out on the scree of clam fossels. S. frarnicea I have been collecting slowly from around and introducing it out into my fields.. I have a very small variety of wild pitcher sage. I have a patch of S. chionophylla, Bee's bliss, S. clevandii, Ballotaeflora on the scree ara. Slowly as I bring in compost and hummus and improve the soil. I have been introducing Madrensis, S penstemonoides, mexican bush sage,Mexican limelight, microphylla San Carlos and a great deal of S gregii.. I wish I could say that they are healthier than they are but I still have not fully understood the land that I am working on. They probably hate me for removing them from their Central Austin Neighborhood of clay based hummus for this cr*p. The Calififornian sage is doing alright out here. We are drier and higher than intown. The Bee's bliss is starting to show growth after the blitzcreig that we call summer


Being you have shells this tells me that your in the
"Walnut formation" which predates our Edwards limestone.
I have been looking for some good local populations of
S.engelmannii and texana. The one's I am familiar with
have been bulldozed.It also sounds like you have the
"Jame form" of regla ,It is more tree like. S.sessei
is pink in color very similiar to the Jame form of regla
which may be a hybrid of sessei.Based on the size,regla
in Big Bend is only 4'tall and does not grow here at all.
You have a great place for growing other salvias too.
I will write back when I get home from work tonight.
Talk to you later.
Art

Actually, I would like someone to look at the S. regla from Jame and compare it to S. betulifolia, found in the Sierras of Durango, which is tree-like. Regla and Betulifolia are very much alike. S. pubescens is more like a hybrid of regla and sessei. The closest sessei locations are all south of Mexico City.

Rich:
I have seen plants grown from seed collected from S regla
"Jame" most bloom the same as Jame.Some will bloom like sessei.
Lynn Lowery collected cuttings from Jame. Being he was color blind (red). I wonder if some cuttings may have been
collected in Durango too.The mix up may have happened at
Lonestar Growers years ago where he left his collections.
I have seen both in production when Lynn was building
their R&D site at the San Antonio facility.Plants where all released and sold under "Salvia regla".We received some plants from them that had two different flower colors.I do agree some genetic samples should be tested to see if there are similar genetic markers in these plants.The collections made at Mt. Emory are all the same color even grown from seed.

Wantonamara;
You can find S.sessei from "A world of salvias"
it is a excellent Salvia site with links to other sites also.I almost lost my regla during our heavy Rain fall.
It is recovering nicely,my other salvias were fine ie greggii,microphylla,miniata,coccinea,scabra,farinacea,
lyrata,rutilans, penstemonoides,Hybrid's Purple Pastel-Neovo Leon-MysticSpires-Silkes Dream Jamensis,etc....the other plant I almost lost was a Dalea frutescens but that has done much better this year in the dry clay soils I have.My regla is 7 years old it has a pretty good size trunk. If you try growing your S.reptans in limestone based rock not the granite I have a friend up in Jarrell.He put some salvias in granite and they died removed them and put the same plants in edwards limestone no problem. He also does not water his plants so he looses some during a drought but only the strong survive.So his plants are more drought tolerant. I am also curious about your scutellaria is it
in a sunny site or shade? Single small clumps or a large
multistemmed plant? Leaves small(like S greggii) or more the size of S. coccinea? I would be careful bringing in to much compost. The people over at Geo growers are good folks you will not have to worry about getting bad compost from them. Some of the salvias you have would do better in deeper soil than compost. I have had greggii,microphylla
die in to much compost they rot.They are used to having a
crown that is dry even during wet years good percution is
important.Let me know when you have some time, I would love
to see some of your property.Have not seen Texas Madrone in a while,any Rusty Blackhaw Viburnum or Mexican Silktassel,
Gay Feather,Texas columbine,Wooly Ironweed,Mountain Pink Blackfoot Daisy or Two Leaf Senna?
Art

OK, I love words. Explain "percution" and I will explain "chatoyance".
I will move the S. reptans tomorow and plant there the mistory wildflowers I collected in the Wichita mountains (red granite). The soil is Geo growers xeric mix "Thunder dirt". I thought, West Texas, Big bend, Igneus rock. Sometimes it just doesn't pay to over think things.
Coming out to this piece of land has me really questioning if I know anything about gardening and if my thumb is green or brown.( I build and restore furniture so my thumb is often a shade of brown after staining.) I have lived on the rainy side of Oahu and in 20+ years in Austin and this is the first time to meet a ground that is so harsh and adverse and to be limited by the size of my cistern.. We had cows on the land and they just about decimated the place in a short amount of time, but now we have a wildlife exemption and are trying to restore the damage.
The dark blue skulcap is a small critter that the cows stomped out and I have been trying to reintroduce, It likes it on caliche rubble out in the sun. Leaves much smaller than gregii. The ones I put out this year did not make it. I will have to collect more seed this spring. I will keep my eye out for a wild S.englmanii seed for you. I am trying to introduce some scutelaria wrightii this coming spring.. The scutelaria ovati is not native to this area but I am setting it out under the oaks and it seems to be doing alright. It doesn't break ground and rests if the ground is too dry, but so far has not died. I haven't seen any Rusty Blackhaw Vibrunum but we do have escapment black cherry and mexican silktassel,agarita,Wooly Ironweed,some mountain pink, celestials, four nerve daisy, blackfoot daisy. Most of my work is finding baby trees and fencing them against those horned rats. I have been collecting wildflower seeds but not many have sprouted that I put out there. No Spring, summer, Fall or winter rains. I have done some experiments with seed balls and had some success in the dry stream bed, so I guess I will do that again. I did have some success seeding liatris captured from the SW parkway but everything grows so slow out here and liatris is a favored food of those horned rats. I wish that mountain lion would be a little hungrier just stay away from my cat.. My land would be most appreciative. My greggii is hanging out under a cedar tree on a bank in unimproved land and it is doing alright, Growing slow but alright. The one in the garden is larger but not as full of bloom, so I chiseled out a hole in the limestone and moved it to a rougher spot because the prime realstate in the soft dirt was needed for a lobelia laxiflora. Personally, I think that I could add acre feet of compost to this land and the drainage would not even be slowed down. Planting things in Caliche is a process that confuses me. I have been planting damianita in a caliche limestone outcrop. Very unfriendly land. (do you seed it in the winter and put it out in the spring only to have it blasted by the sun or do you seed it during the summer heat and put it out in the fall so it can have the winter to make itself at home. OH,oh, I better shut up. I am making the salvia forum into a native forum. My appologies.
Art , you are welcomed to come out here. My Garden is a young and struggling garden at best. The land is pretty. I have heard your name mentioned often in my time wandering around the Austin Plant scene.
I am enjoying listening to the two of you banter about the history of collecting. It reminds me of art history and my grandfather talking about artist friends on the east coast and all their mishaps passed off in the blur of time and how now the academics study their accidents as purposeful actions.
I will check out that Salvia site, Thank you.

OH,oh, I better shut up. I am making the salvia forum into a native forum. My appologies.

None are necessary. You are obviously an observant gardener who appreciates high-maintenance horticulture to study plants in their highly specialized niches. We need lots of folks like you to help suss out optimal growing conditions for Salvias. I may want to make frequent contact with you to exchange observations and ideas.

Here is one for you: S. reptans has lots of long, skinny rhizomes that must be lifted with the root ball to successfully transplant it. The "eyes" are on the stems between the top of the rhizome and where it connects to the crown.

Actually, I am just trying to find out what will grow here and where. I have three or four types of land in close proximity, all with their problems placed in an environment with baking heat an minimally available water. I have dismally heavy red clay with a western exposure, caliche, solid rock, limestone rubble with a leaf mulch soil. I don't want to do a lot of modification or mowing (none)so things have to be able to coexist and compete with native fauna. How much of this philosophy is doable remains to be seen.It is a rag tag affair. I obtain salvias and I research them as far as the info is out there. Nursery people can answer questions only so far. I should have found you guys a while back. "Optimal growing conditions". I would phrase it more as finding the extremes of a plants capabilities and matching plants to sited but that is what any gardener would do.I get species like S chinophylla, a thick delightful full clump is exibbited at the Natural Garden butterfly garden. But when it comes to my house and I plant it where they say it grows naturally in the wild. One would want it to grow into that fat well fed and watered guy but It reverts back to the thin wandering scraggly critter of a ground cover begging for a super size fast food serving of nitrogen and phosphorous.. My wild flowers do poke there way through and maybe that is as it should be. Maybe it is a time factor out here. Everything takes time. Time slows down when there is no water.
Thanks for the warning about moving S. reptANS. I did not get to it today. I will be extra careful.

I owe everyone a apology my native history shows up sometimes.Not to bad for someone from New Jersey I could teach a few Texans about the great flora they have.
I'm bad, the word I was attempting to spell is "percolation".It is in reference to soil texture and how quickly water will move through it.Plus I get punchy after
a long day.I would be interested to see some of your S.greggii too.It is interesting to see Salvias in a native setting verses our garden settings, they behave in very different ways.I grew S.roemeriana in my hillcountry garden with ease (Wimberly). Here in the clay it has died several times.The other obsevation I have made is my hillcountry garden grew much larger a plant
than what was in the wild several miles away. The plant communities where the same but the soils were different.
My garden was on Edwards limestone the wild population
was on walnut formation scree.I find it a good Idea to have some sense of where in geologic time you are in relation to
soils.The area's where S. greggii occures in Mexico are much different than populations in Texas.All of the S.greggi populations occur on limestone based soils from the desert around Del Rio (pink forms) to the Glass mountain population which contains white flowering forms.
Mexico has S.greggii occuring in more mountainous terrain.
It makes a difference because of the plant communities and soils that contain different microbes.After that adapting them to a garden condition well you see how that works too.I have found that growing different salvias from seed is better because they are innoculated with the local microbes and adjust to them easier than cutting grown.I will also keep in touch so when bloom season started we can get together. You can grow the California Salvias better because of your location down in my Oak/Juniper/Pecan area the California Salvias die because of slow percolation in the soil they rot.I will look forward to visiting with you and talking plants.
Art

Wantonamara:
If you need to get in touch here is my e-mail: arthur.
petley@sbcglobal.net. Did you grow any salvias in oahu?
By the way your S.farinacea should do better in deeper
clay soils as it is a prairie plant.I also see S.azurea var grandiflora growing in prairie situations but in wetter situations(a bar ditch) .S.texana and engelmannii should be good areas with thin clay and limestone 2-4 inches below.
Like you say they will find there place.I also would not
mind a Augusta Duelberg. My garden will be on tour in 2010
so I am trying to get more salvias into my mix. On top of
that I am working with Zilker Botanical Gardens to get a
planting of salvias down there and could use some of your
input on growing S.texana,S.engelmannii or at least trying to reproduce native conditions for the plants to grow.
Art

I hope no ones minds that I intrude on one of the more interesting conversations I've heard here in a long time - no disrespect to any of the others. I have a couple of comments that lead to questions.

The first concerns West Texas greggii. I believe both Wild Thing and the old standard White are from West Texas. These two have shown themselves to be remarkably tough in South Jersey. Often they hold leaves high on the plant right through winter, not always an easy thing for greggii here. Are there other named cultivars from West Texas that I can find? And what is the soil like near Del Rio, I've only driven through that part of the desert.

Another is does anyone know the name of the Penstemon that blooms at the lower edge of the oak zone in washes in Big Bend? It is in bloom around the end of April.

Wardda:
I have a shorter pink greggii collected from Junction by
Pat McNeal. I understand that Scott Ogden told him about that population. There are two forms of this here in Austin
a dark pink and light pink plants are no bigger than a foot tall. One form you may find is "Furmans Red" it is named after E.A. Furman a rancher in the Kerrville area.where Furmans red was collected I am not for sure,it may have been on his ranch.Now "Wild Thing" was found by Tom Pease in
missouri. It would be nice to know where in West Texas it
was collected.The other thing to note is S.lyciodes ranges from Big Bend up to the Guadalupe mountains.So there is hybridizing going on between lyciodes and greggii.Being
lycioides more cold hardy than S. greggii these may have some of those genetics involved.I have seen other forms
that were collected years ago (but have been lost) from West Texas by Lynn Lowery.The soil in Del Rio more specifically Brackettville is loose gravel Limestone.I grows with Leucophyllum frutescens (Texas Sage)
typically in wet weather streams(washes).As to your Penstemon do you remember the color?Orange-P.harvardii ,Coral-P.wrightii,Red-P.baccharifolius,P.barbatus var.Torreyi,Blue violet- P.fendleri,P.dasyphyllus or pink P.palmeri Hope this has helped.
Art

I don't know the soil around Del rio but I bet it is some variant of calcareous limestone soil. But that will vary in character from alkaline clays, sandy loams,caliche, gravel mixed with grey stuff, gravel mixed with white stuff, limestone . You can have these all close together. You can see that I am not the scientific sort of human. There is limestone and then there is limestone. It appears that it changes in chemical and microbial life dependent on the limestone strata. SEEAs to your Question about Pestemons, There is the Big Bend Penstemon... There that was easy. LOL, No seriously, Penstemon Havardii is called Big bend penstemon on occasion. There is also Penstemon Baccharifolious. There are probably many more too that I don;t know about. This is a great site for googling and researching Natives.
http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=PEBA
http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=PEBA

Salvias in Hawaii. I don't think I even knew the word . Oh, I knew it was a flower and sage you ate in sausage and poultry. The heavy red volcanic clay soil and 80" of rain didn't really give us an ideal location for the sages. Mexican sages had not made the jump into the trade. There were not many
nurseries in Hawaii at the time and they were not very healthy or adventuresome businesses. One could just find piles of trimmings of any type of croton, hanging haliconia and discarded ginger plants thrown out on the street. All you had to do was stick them in the ground and everything would grow. There were so many other plants that people just gave each other or collected that buying plants wasn't practiced where I lived. Things have changed there. The choices of plants came from the tropics of the pacific and China. Culturally that is where the influences were. I was a serial renter so my gardens were planted and then left. It is strange to revisit them and to see the remnants still there. I never even ran into the Lepechinia hastas (false salvia)
http://www.plantdelights.com/Catalog/Fall/Detail/05321.html
while out there in the mountains. I wonder where it is native in Hawaii.

Yes My S. roemeriana is small. It grows very slowly. I guess we are in the walnut limestone that you have talk about. Many things grow small here. That has been an observation. I have seen S Englemani and S. texana growing in shallow white caliche based soils and screes out here and self sowing . I do not see them in the clay based field that I have. My neighbor has S. franinacia growing wild on her west facing slope of the Shingle hills but it is much smaller than the S.farinacea that is on the side of FM 12 in Wimberley and 1/3 the size of a clump growing on a high bank of river sand by the Pedernales River. I am judging them on a very droughty summer so it might be different on another year. I should pick up a book on the geology as pertaining to plant life. Would you have a good book to read on the subject?

Unfortunately it has been 15 years since I saw the Penstemon growing along the window trail below the parking lot at Big Bend. I was leading a birding fieldtrip and paid more attention to the Lucifer Hummingbirds feeding on the plant.

I hadn't considered Furman's Red and it is another very hardy greggii here. It hasn't been one of my favorites because it takes a long summer break for me, blooming best in the fall.

From your comments it sounds like lycoides should be introduced into my sage hedge. If I had read your post before I began working with greggii I would have wondered whether it could take the acidic conditions which prevail here, but it does raise a question about yearly applications of limestone - perhaps it doesn't matter.

You mentioned an off topic plant that I have considered trying, wooly ironweed. The local ironweeds seem to be passed over by deer, and the wooly one is the right stature for introduction to the sage row. One of the purposes of the public garden where all these sages are growing is feeding butterflies and because of the deer and barren conditions most of the local plants will not serve. One interesting aside concerning greggii is that to my surprise it is highly attractive to the group of butterflies known as skippers. This makes the species doubly useful to the growing clan of wildlife gardeners.

Thanks to both of you for your replies.

One day when I wanted to start the gregii clump down by my cedar tree, I watched a huge display of 10 different gregii colors at my favorite local source of gregiis to see which ones the butterflies liked the best. This was not a scientific survey. this was a 5 minute personal observation made under undoubtedly unscientific conditions before I plunked my money down. It seemed that the butterflies were going for (THAT DAY), the "perfectly pink" gregii. I have done this survey since and not had the same result. LOL. But yes, they do like the gregii. The sulfurs LOVE the S chiquita. Their yellow wings look knock dead gorgeous on the blue.
The wooly ironweed is easy to germinate. It does like heat to germinate, I think. I did it in the Fall, that is a Texas Fall, when the temps come down to 90 degrees in september. I have also geminated them in spring once the ground has warmed. Have you also Thought about Eupatorium gregii, the palm leafed mist flower from west texas. That will stay fairly low and give it room for it will expandfrom runners when happy and WOW is it a butterfly magnate. Probably not good used with other plants. It wants its own area.It becomes a garden thug if it does not have enough room.OH yea, They are having a name change and I am unsure of the new name . begins with a c... Ahh, the wonders of google. Who needs a mind. Conoclinium gregii and also Conclinium coelestinum, wild ageratum. It is taller, maybe too tall for your use. I just collected some of the Gregii (yesterday)and will be collecting the other this week.

Warda:
It would not be a bad idea to sweeten the soil there in
New Jersey.My parents used to live in Mickelton. Some
of the Jamensis forms make it for you? They grow in limestone soils in Mexico.But I think some of that maybe
more neutral because of the conifers that grow there to.
The most important thing with the salvias you are growing is soil perculation. It is easier to take a plant from
alkaline to acidic than the other way around.S.Lycioides
has very small blue flowers.S.Regla is pollinated by the Lucifer hummingbird also.Skippers get on my Dalea frut.but we see sulfurs on S.x Mysticspires and S.greggii has the
occasional Queen or Yellow swallowtail.
Wantonamara:
If you get S.greggii from John Dromgoole's he gets plants
from Tom Pease and Texas Ornamental Service who is hybridizing salvias on limestone soils here. They also order Salvias from a grower on Lake Tawakoni.Plus some other local growers Gabriel Valley Farms etc.. I guess
you have Pink Preference maybe? I am not familiar with
Tom Pease's S.greggii cultivars.TTYL
Art

If I am to grow gregii from seed, to get the most intuneness to my soil, does it matter if I seed them in the soil where I am to grow them or should I give it a friendly potting soil to start and then transplant them into my wild soil. Or should I do a mix. I usually plant (what few salvias that I have started from seed (S.pentsemonoides)) in Spring. Should I winter sow gregii? These are simple questions. Usually , I would not do the research and just do and if it didn't work do it again. But Now I can ask some dumb questions with abandon? Is the seed carrying the inoculations for the local microbes learned by the parents and passed on to the baby in utero or does it need to learn about the microbes in infancy , or both?
If anyone has any "wild thing" Gregii seed they would like to trade. could one get ahold of me.

There will be a delay because of the season, but if reminded I will collect Wild Thing seed for you in the summer. There are more than a dozen plants in the row so there will be plenty to collect. I might be talked into sending you young seedlings if you like. If the weather here decides to be rainy for a change there will be lots of new seedlings. All you'll know is that they have Wild Thing parentage, at least 15% of the seedlings will probably be hybrids with microphylla and other greggii/micro hybrids. There are a lot of other greggii and microphylla in the row.

Wantonamara:
First there are no"Dumb Questions" we are all observers here
so ask away.I have learned about some of my own failures on
this forum. If you have a cold frame you can winter sow greggii seed.A consistent 70 degree temperature for a few weeks should begin germination.I can give you specifics if
you want to build a coldframe.Other than that keep any eye
on the local lake water temps that will be winthin a few degrees of soil temps.Planting outside you can plant your seed then because of your altitude it will delay it a few weeks but thats fine.Sow your Salvia seed in a soil that is well drained deep soil in 6-8 hours of direct sun.Shade in the afternoon is fine too.Something like Geo Growers native soil mix.I would not put it on your limestone scree as the seedlings would not have good soil moisture to grow.It is usually better to seed them where you want them to grow.I find that plants grown in a greenhouse mix (Peat Moss,etc)don't do as well. The peat does not allow the crown to dry out and they rot.A fine Pine Bark mix does better.There is
a Salvia greggii called "raspberry" which should be a better cultivar for you as it likes to be on the dry side w/good drainage you may want to try some of the seed from
"wild thing" too.I can show you how to do cuttings when we get together this spring.
Art

Warda , thankyou for your kind offer. I probably should get the seed from someone locally if I can find it, or from somewhere with alkaline soil , atleast. Art, I have done many cuttings of the salvias. I like to make plant babies and I have used the plants in my garden to help raise money for some nonprofirts through the years.. I have had failure but I have a lot of success a lot, also, So i just take more cuttings than I need. But learning from someone instead of pretending and just doing and praying is a good thing. Do you have "wild thing" Or rasberry, Art? Wild thing seems to be the one greggii that John D doesn't carry."

Wantonamara:
The way you are doing cuttings is great you already know
how to root things that work best for you.One of the places I have seen growing "Wild Thing" is High Country Gardens. I will check with Tom Peace and see if that is still in his mix.He also grows some other interesting salvias too.
I don't have "Wild Thing" I do have a bed of Raspberry Seedlings.Colors are Pink,Lavender and Purple hues. There
is some pronounced veination in the flowers at close inspection.Not to be confused with Raspberry Royale (one of Rich's hybrids)which looks closer to magenta than Raspberry does. Art