It's necessary to take cuttings from new growth, using firm but still green stems for the part struck in the medium. It helps to have one or two stem nodes in the medium, as bacterial and viral attacks frequently are stopped at that point. I advise bottom heat at about 80 degrees. I don't use rooting hormones or fungicides, but they might work better for you. Use a sterile, aerated medium like washed builder's sand or vermiculite - not water or plain soil.

It is quite sad that hardly anyone is using this forum these days. Seems to be more Salvia 'activity' on the hummingbird forum.

I do agree with salvia86's comment about Californian Salvias and cuttings...they are not easy!

Thanks for the responses. What about misting/humidity and time of year?

Misting is good in arid environments but not in high humidity with these sages, because excess humidity causes molding.

The best time to look for flushes of growth is in the spring. There may be a flush in the autumn with enough growth to try then as well, but you will need to protect the young cuttings with bottom heat because they will want to go into dormancy and will have to be robust enough to shift gears, hence the bottom heat.

This is really helpful information. Thank you so much.

This photo was of my early attempts at CA native and other salvia propagation by cutting, I've refined a bit since those days, but I still prefer used plastic beverage containers so I don't feel bad about cutting them open with hand clippers when they have established new roots (which will snap very easily if yanked out of the container).

You take fresh spring cuttings of non-woody growth in the morning when the plant's stems and leaves are full of moisture and least likely to wilt, dip the stem in a solution (I prefer vinegar or willow water to stimulate growth over rooting hormone, which is indole-3-acetic acid, IAA or IAB, wheras vinegar is simply acetic acid), and I use a rooting mix of one-third washed sand and two parts perlite -- perlite drains better than vermiculite. Then I place the cutting in a place that gets limited morning sun only, maybe 2 hours or so, & keep them moist but not soggy which usually means watering 1-2 times a day with a watering can. Pretty simple actually, often easier than germinating seeds for S. apiania, clevelandi, leucophylla, mellifera, brandegeii, ... and coaxing them along to an age when they can be transplanted.

Thanks for the tutorial! Germinating seeds for S. clevelandii has been another issue....

Salvias adapted to a fire ecology often need smoke treatment of the seeds for good germination rates. Here's the academic explanation of it, but the practical up shoot is buy some liquid smoke (use in cooking meat), it often is less than $3 and add a small amount in a jar of water and then soak the sage seeds in it for a few hours to increase your seedling success rate. One note is saturated salvia seeds are gooey and more fragile than dry, hard seeds to handle, so it takes some time to get used to working with them. Chopsticks or some other tool for seperating seeds can be handy ( I use toothpicks sometimes too).

http://depts.washington.edu/propplnt/2003guidelines/group1/Smoke%20Infusion.htm